Info

"..they wanted to create a LAN that would keep the cost to lanners at a minimum."
hamLAN was first started by a group of friends that mostly knew each other through high school and university whilst clearing out their parents homes and garages to have LANs on a regular basis. Becoming larger and larger each time was causing difficulties as they were outgrowing most of the locations they could use.

They needed to expand, and whilst doing so wanted to provide a similar experience for people not familiar with lanning. Frustrated by the lack of LANs in Hamilton and the money spinning mindset of most other LAN organisers, they wanted to create a LAN that would keep the cost to lanners at a minimum.

Many long nights and hours of research later, the possibility of putting together a larger LAN in Hamilton was within reach. Armed with a can-do attitude, all it would take would be the equipment to get the LAN off the ground. Colin Cowgill (Darkwolf) bank-rolled the initial purchase of switches, power cables, 4-way power boards, and components for a 3-phase distribution board.

hamLAN started out on March 25-26 (Easter Weekend) 2005 with a modest 60 person LAN in the Kentucky Lounge at the Te Rapa Racecourse. The response was better than expected. Our network equipment consisted of two 3com 4250T 10/100 50 port switches linked together with gigabit trunks. Approx. 2 hours into the event the power to the 3-phase distro was lost. This was due to a kitchen hand that had directed the 3-phase power to be plugged into an outlet that was not of sufficient amperage. A long 3-phase extension cable was brought in and put into an outlet of the correct rating. Power was restored and continued flawlessly for the rest of the event.

hamLAN II was held on September 3-4 2005 at the Te Rapa racecourse and we moved to a ground floor room (The Members Lounge) which eliminated the need to drag computers up the lift or stairs. A 16 year old age restriction was also implemented.
Sponsors: RVC Technology, Fusion Media, Interspeed and Thermaltake

hamLAN III was held on February 18-19 2006. Constrained by power, we were forced to move to a different room which had access to two 3-phase outlets without the need for a cost prohibitive extension cable. We hired an extra 3 phase power distro which allowed us to increase the number of computers we could support up to 126. Due to popular demand, gigabit was starting to be phased in with a cheap 24 port gigabit swich, allowing for 22 usable gigabit ports.
Sponsors: RVC Technology, Fusion Media, Interspeed, Thermaltake and Redbull

hamLAN IV was held on June 24-25 2006, we moved back into the Members Lounge that we used for hamLAN II, and have used the Members Lounge ever since. The Members Lounge has since been refurbished and is now called Colours on Te Rapa. We bought two more generic 24 port gigabit switches. One of which overheated and failed at approx. 1am Sunday morning. After a short amount of troubleshooting, the network was returned to normal. The generic switches were returned following hamLAN IV for a full refund. If we learned anything, it was to not buy cheap generic equipment :P
Sponsors: RVC Technology, Fusion Media and Interspeed

hamLAN V was held on January 20-21 2007. We bought one Linksys SRW2024 24 port gigabit managed switch in order to retain partial gigabit and two SRW224G4 24 port 10/100 managed switches to allow us more freedom in placing table switches.
Sponsors: RVC Technology, Fusion Media and Interspeed

hamLAN 6 was held on August 25-26 2007. We acquired sponsorship from Linksys and were able to purchase another two SRW2024 24 port gigabit managed switches at a reduced price, bringing the total number of usable gigabit ports up to 60. We had an interesting incident with a PSU catching fire. A quick thinking lanner grabbed the computer and it was extinguished outside.
Sponsors: Fusion Media, Linksys and Interspeed

hamLAN 7 was held on March 29-30 2008. We purchased an HP 2810-24G 24 port gigabit manged switch to use as our core network switch and totally re-developed the topology of the network.
Sponsors: Fusion Media, Linksys and Interspeed

hamLAN 8 was held on September 6-7 2008. Velocity joined us as a sponsor. We didn't purchase any more equipment. Someone (who shall remain nameless) plugged two cables between his own switch and one of the hamLAN switches inadvertently creating a network loop. Unfortunately RSTP was not enabled on our switch, the network loop then proceeded to bring a section of the network to a halt. This issue was found and resolved quickly.
Sponsors: Velocity, Fusion Media, Linksys and Interspeed

hamLAN 9 will be held on April 4-5 2009.
Sponsors: Velocity, digiCreative, Linksys and Interspeed. Slave Labour: Urbanlan


Current hamLAN organizers (In order of surname):
Daniel Appleton (dapples), Patrick Bridgman (thefamilyman), Cole Hogan (Surreal), Nick Jenkin (duey), Nelson Job (Kapdap), Robert Larkins (Ayb4btu), Dave Leaver (Danzel), Richard Voschezang (MrMan).

Retired hamLAN organizers (In order of surname):
Colin Cowgill (Darkwolf), Andrew McIvor (Redhead).