Richmond Free WiFi Blog

We are thrilled to announce the release of our third gateway, located around the perimeter of N. Pinehill Dr. on the Northside. Special thanks to Adam Bell for generously donating a portion of his high-speed Internet connection. This gateway will eventually be moved outdoors and be powered by a Power over Ethernet connection to serve an even larger area. Additional Meraki units may be added as “nodes” to help expand the mesh network throughout the neighborhood.

The following image shows real-time specs of the node’s uptime:

Node name: I-O-N_Pinehill_Dr-001

To access this node, simply point your wireless configuration to “RichmondFreeWireless”, open your web browser click the link on the splash page to continue and you’re on the web!

If you’d like to expand the network from this node or even set up a gateway with your connection to share throughout your neighborhood, feel free to check out our “help expand the network” page.

Looks like the last night’s storms affected our two gateways for several hours.  All appears to be okay now, however, we’ll keep monitoring the gateways for any additional issues that may arise.

According to Dominion Resource’s electric outage map, quite a few residents and businesses are still without power. Hope they come back soon!

We are thrilled to announce the release of our second gateway, located at the corner of Lamplighter & Chippendale on the Southside. Special thanks to JT Allison for generously donating a portion of his high-speed Internet connection. This gateway will eventually use a more powerful antenna to allow for effective outside coverage. Additional Meraki units may be added as “nodes” to help expand the mesh network throughout the neighborhood.

The following image shows real-time specs of the node’s uptime:

Node name: I-O-Lamplighter_Chippendale-001

To access this node, simply point your wireless configuration to “RichmondFreeWireless”, open your web browser click the link on the splash page to continue and you’re on the web!

If you’d like to expand the network from this node or even set up a gateway with your connection to share throughout your neighborhood, feel free to check out our “help expand the network” page.

Brenda P over at the Petersburg People’s News has generously donated one of her banner ad slots to further support our project. PBURGPN.net is the place to visit for the latest news and information related to Petersburg.

Thanks for helping out, Brenda!

If anyone is interested in seeing how the RFW network works, this is an open invitation. An informal Q&A session will also be offered, i.e. a “meet and greet” or whatever.

Date: Tomorrow, Saturday the 18th
Time: 10am
Where: We’ll meet up in front of the Science Museum off of Broad St. and walk over to the gateway location around the area of 2600 W. Grace St. Just look for the geek with the black Macbook bag near the front of Science Museum. I’ll be wearing a blue Cabela’s Goretex hat, possibly my RFW t-shirt, cargo shorts and hiking boots.

Bring your laptop!

If you have any questions, feel free to drop us an email at info@richmondfreewifi.org or via a comment below.

Hope you’ll join us!