Not in the Halls!

One thing UETN does to help the IT EDU community in Utah is to have a conference every year called UETN Tech Summit. We listen to keynotes, find out what UETN has been up to that year and attend classes on varying subjects. I went to all of the wireless classes I could because I was in the process of installing a brand spanking new controller based wireless system and I found out I installed it totally wrong. I put all the AP's in the hallways because that was much easier and I didn't understand things like channel utilization, airtime, and CCI. My project for the next summer was moving them all into the classrooms. I still go to all the wireless classes at Tech Summit because sometimes they even get famous people like Keith Parsons to speak.

Entry Level

In the early 90's I decided to take a Cisco class at the local Technical College since the CCNA cert was the hot certification to get at that time. I wanted to get out of the construction business and get a real job. Well after the class I took the test and got certified and it actually helped me get a job at a local software company in their call center fixing network problems. After a few months I was moved to a sys admin position and worked there for about 7 years. I then took a job at a K-12 Charter school with 1200 students as the IT "everything" guy. Here's where my professional wireless journey begins. Luckily when you work in IT in the education sector in Utah you have this wonderful organization called the Utah Education and Telehealth Network (UETN). They have been instrumental in my learning of wireless technologies.

In the Beginning

This will be a Blog about my journey from being a guy who knows a little bit about wireless networking to a guy who knows a little bit more about wireless. I come from humble beginnings of a geek who bought old broken 386's and 486's from a thrift store and learning how to get them working again and running coax network cable through the heat vents so I could play Warcraft and Command and Conquer with my sons. My first foray into wireless was with the venerable Linksys WAP 11 and all the goodness that came with 802.11b. As I was the only one in my neighborhood with a broadband connection (go figure) I decided to share and built my first point to multi-point network with some of my neighbors using WAP 11's ripped out of their cases and put in external enclosures and an omni antenna I built and installed on my roof and some cantennas at my neighbor's houses. I've since evolved but that was a learning experience.