Hello.

I keep trying without success to connect with my laptop directly to hsmm network as a node. Can someone support me with this with a short tutorial?

I have found guides for win xp but not for win 7/8 where the adhoc wifi settings have changed a little bit.

I will try to describe what I have done and please correct me where I did wrong...

I command prompt with elevated privileges (run cmd as administrator):

-set my ssid to BroadbandHamnet-20-v3 (is this ok?)

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=BroadbandHamnet-20-v3

-started adhoc network on laptop

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

-figure out wifi adhoc interface ip running ipconfig

-started olsr switch app (http://www.olsr.org/releases/0.5/olsrd-0.5.6-r3-pre-cac1df64dcd5-setup.exe) an checked the interface identified in the last step and then click start

After this steps I expect to see in Nodes tab the other nodes (my wrt54gs node...) but its not working...

Thank you,

Bogdan

The recommended way to attach smartphones, laptops and tablets to the mesh without using a network cable is to provide a wep encrypted access point on the lan. You will need to choose a channel different than 1, choose a different SSID, set WEP and password, and turn off any local DHCP.  Take any access point or router and plug it into the lan jacks on a WRT54 series, or into a switch connected to them mesh.

You will have much more flexibility and support for a wider range of devices with an AP than trying to convert various types of hardware (like the notebook) to directly become mesh nodes. Use of wep and a separate ssid and channel ensure that you don't interfere with the mesh itself, and that only you and others (who need to be hams) can join that AP and participate. Encryption at the AP is not an issue since it is operated solely under part 15. The access point itself and any devices connected to it will pull a DHCP address from the mesh node.

In effect it becomes an invisible cat5 cable connected to your mesh node. Operation and features available will be no different than if plugged in.

I agree that using an AP is recommended way but the challenge is howto do it directly...

For a Windows machine to be an actual node on the mesh would be rather difficult.  In order to be a node and routing mesh network traffic your Windows box will need to be running OLSR at the very least.   The sources are out there BUT the last released binary for Windows was 0.5.6-r3-pre from Nov 2008, some six and a third years ago.  I suspect that wouldn't be compatible with the version that's running on the mesh now.  Oh, the last versions of Windows for which it was intended was W2K/XP/Vista.  

OLSR is written to be run on Linux, for the most part.  Getting it to compile and run under more recent versions of Windows, I strongly suspect, it would be a rather daunting task to say the least.  And it'll take more than getting a more recent version of OLSR to compile under Windows -- there remains the task of getting it to integrate with the DNS and routing services on Windows 8.1.

If you still want to give it a shot, knock yourself out!