Thread: Kyocera KR1

> How strong is the signal from this unit? How far does it broad cast and would it be possible to add a range booster?

It has a standard antenna connector (the radioshack boosters work), so you can add what you want. You could also add via wired ethernet another router with a more powerful card (if one exists) or better antennae.

> I'm interested in it for the car when we're on road trips to shows. Usually we're all in a caravan.

You probably would do best with a rooftop antenna. Any typically used for "wardriving" would work - probably 9db or something close - typically these are just over a foot high with a magnetic mount.

> Also, once you take the board apart, are the PCMCIA slot and the network ports on separate boards

The wireless (atheros) is a mini-PCI card. The rest is a single board.

> also, does anyone know what the wallwart says?

It needs 1A at 5V. I have various USB, iTips, etc. adapters which work at 5v.

IT COMES WITH a car (12v cigarette plug) adapter - and it is probably the best one I've seen - it is a high efficiency DC-DC converter. If you add a battery in parallel though you must use a diode since 5v on the router side will attempt to power 12v (my iPod lighter adapter light would stay on).

More information is at evdoforums (see the URL below and strip the post) including a very long thread on alternate power sources and how much it actually consumes.

The "diagnostic" port - the one with the black plastic plug next to the usb port for the phone is a true RS232 port with RxD and TxD on the green and white wires of a standard USB connector (with black as ground too). I use the 5v from the phone USB port to power my Garmin GPS-18 5hz.

There are two prominent serial headers inside (10 pin, for old PC style dual row .1" connectors). One is for an internal "console" port where you can watch Linux boot and get a shell, and the second is a parallel connector for the external diagnostic port.

The only wierd bit is the baud rate can only be set by the first program that opens the port. They did something evil to the serial driver (or failed to fix something).

And OEM GPS (bare, printed circuit) board should work fine, but there is no easy way to wire one within the KR1, and you would need an external GPS antenna, or have to mount the KR1 where the GPS sats would be visible.

The OEM modules are better since they usually have wires for power, TxD/RxD, and anything else like PPS outputs but are sealed or otherwise don't need anything fancy.

The only thing to watch in either case is if you ever have to do something like update the firmware - there should be a way to connect it to normal serial connectors (I have such an adapter for my GPS-18 5Hz that goes from a DB9 connector to a USB A Female so instead of going into the diagnostic port I can go into my PC). I do have a full duplex (both direction) "passthrough" port at 22947 which works with network virtual serial ports on windows (within some limits - don't change the baudrate or firmware, but you can set defaults and config).

Feel free to contact me - I'm tz - at - execpc.com (replace the -at- with the at sign). Or comment over at evdoforums - it is my informal support site for altered firmware, and they have many KR1 users who don't have such a geek dialect.

Or PM me here or over at evdoforums.