These notes cover Monday 18 January to Sunday 24 January 2021.
I went to Croatia to help out at an Open Data event a few years ago. Whilst there I was introduced to the Turris Omnia. It's an open-source network router developed in the Czech Republic. One of the many cool things it can do is automatic fail-over. So when my wired broadband goes down, it can automatically switch to mobile broadband. Then switch back once the wired broadband comes back.
To enable this there's a bunch of additional things I needed to buy including:
an expansion card to send and receive mobile broadband
a heat sink and associated adhesive tape
2 new antenna and associated cables
a SIM card
I got the expansion card, antenna and cables first. To check they worked I installed them and used the SIM card from my phone. To make the test as realistic as possible, I played a YouTube video on a connected device and then pulled the network cable out of the broadband modem. YouTube didn't miss a beat and there was no change in the video resolution.
The expansion card gets pretty hot under load. So once I'd done the quick test, I powered down the router and removed the SIM card. I need to install the heat sink before I do anything else. Problem is I couldn't find someone to sell me the size I needed (not that I tried very hard).
So instead I bought a metal bar which is the right width and height, but needs cutting to length. It's an aluminium alloy so I've also bought some metal cutting blades for my junior hacksaw. I'll have a good next weekend.
I'm not entirely sure the adhesive tape I bought for the heat sink is the right type. But I'll have a go and see if it works.
One thing I've noticed is that the maximum throughput of the mobile broadband is higher than my wired broadband. It that's true in practice, I might try running on mobile broadband for a day and see if I notice any difference. A further step could be to use both wired and mobile broadband simultaneously and balance the load between the 2.
That's all for now. Will update you on progress next week.
J.