Connectivity aside, the whole thing just seems unnecessarily expensive. You'd think the defense department would be able to come up with their own proprietary solution.

I don't believe it's open source, but Shaun Inman's "Mint" (www.haveamint.com) is user-hosted. And quite pretty to look at, as well.

My experience has been similar. For me, I never seem to get a medium-strength signal. It's either 0 bars or no bars. Gets a bit frustrating.