Are we having fun yet Tom?


Jul 03 07:01 04, Tom Walker wrote to All:

 TW> A little while back there was some discussion about the range of
Wi-Fy. And specificly if a 20 mile range was achievable. Here is something
I ran 
 TW> across on the internet.

 TW> *****
 TW> On Saturday, December 6, 2003 a group of students from Weber State
University demonstrated 802.11b networking over a distance of 82 miles
using 
 TW> off-the-shelf hardware and software. It was a line of sight shot
across the Great Salt Lake in UTAH. They used DSS Modified for the Wi-Fi
band Dish 
 TW> antennas and a 1.5 Watt amplifier. The record for Unamplified Wi-Fi
is 70.5Km(32.9 Miles) set across water between two of the Canary Islands.
 TW> *****

 TW>  Now to be fair the first one was done under an expermential permit
and would be Illegal for day to day use as the FCC specificlt sets limits
on 
 TW> Effectiave Radiated Power. But while the application of the second
one could be limited except in the Flat lands of the midwest Point ot Point

 TW> ranges far beyond what it typical are posable. The key is that it
is Truly Line of Sight. IF standing beside yuor antenna you cannot
Physicaly see 
 TW> the recieving antenna the chance of sucess is low. Both those
attempts used an old Primestar DBS dish and a "Nalley Big Chunk Beef
Stew Can" as a 
 TW> "Waveguide Antenna" in the focal spot of the DBS dish.

That's impressive! 

I have been promised a slightly damaged sattelite dish by one of the local
installers, apparently one edge has been slightly dented making it
unsalable for a new installation, but he's in no hurry to recover it from
his boneyard so i must be patient. In the mean time i have been considering
a parabolic reflector of simply bent sheet metal (or flyscreen).

It certainly looks like almost anything will work with waveguide tubes.
Perhaps it is just my construction, but for all the effort involved it
seems anyone can stick a wire in any tin can and have it work about as well
as my more carefully engineered efforts. Perhaps there is a precision
threshold i have yet to breach. On the other hand i have not tried the stew
can myself so have no idea (yet) if i'm doing better or not.

I'm stuck with my line of sight as it is. I have a limited range of
location for the antenna at this end, and the other end of the link is
pretty much fixed. A couple of days ago one of the summer folk pulled out
and signal strength improved by 13 dB, but i expect another RV to replace
it shortly :{at}


It could be worse ...
Paul

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