From: John Tserkezis 
Reply-To: Fidonet AVtech Echo 

Bob Lawrence wrote:

> JT> Sorry for the late reply
> 
>  Who are you? Do I know you?

  Stuffed if I know.  I just said that because I check my BBS for netmail every 
few months, and since the dates are grunged, I have no idea when you may have 
sent that.  Remember that Y2K issue?  I still haven't fixed it properly.

>  I understand widow's sockets. That's the hole my plug goes into when
> I get lucky with a widow. I am shocked! I knew there was pornography
> on the Internet, but I didn't know they had software for it. 

  I don't have any pornography.  I don't have a pornograph to play it on.

> BL> I looked it up on the map and you're only 2.4km away (by crow
> BL> flight),
> 
> JT> Exactly 4.6726Km, as the crow flies.
> 
>  Either my map sucks, or it's in miles.

  2.4 miles underestimates it a bit, but either way, as long as you're at the 
cross streets I mentioned, it IS that distance exactly.

> JT> I've just checked my elevation maps, and it appears to be
> JT> mostly flat.

>  With two big hills in between... one in Concord, and the other at
> Burwood (heights). Why don't you move to the City? I've got
> line-of-sight to the City, straight down the Parramatta River. In
> fact, when the greenhouse effect gets going, I'll be *in* the
> Parramatta River.

  The burwood hill is the only one of consequence.  I estimate a dish at 10m 
elevation should do the trick (at my end since the hill is closer to here).

> JT> There is a hill about halfway from your place, but it's only a
> JT> few metres.

>  Try walking up it every morning, like I do...

  Line of sight elevations are a little different. It doesn't matter about 
hills that run on either side of the centre line.

>  If it's anything like the UHF repeaters they use on CB, you'll need
> a good few watts and a really tall antenna. It's not strictly line of
> sight, btw. UHF does quite a bit of bending and bouncing... except
> that it's unpredictable.

  Actually, no.  I've checked again, and provding there's line of sight, we can 
easily get triple that distance while still staying legal.  Line of sight is 
the critical point.

>  Why not use CB?

  Bandwidth is limited to 1200 or so, if you're lucky.  And you can't transmit 
continuous data anyway, so permantent links are out of the question.

> JT> Actually, I can do it on my way to work tomorrow, I'll just
> JT> ride over the crow's path, it keeps track of my path and
> JT> altitude, I'll sort out the track and altitude readings when I
> JT> get home.

>  Gee, that's clever. Modern technology is scary.

  That was last week, it confirmed my other elevation data.  It certainly 
appears to be doable, now only thing remains is how do I get the dish up high 
enough?
  Or would dialup be a better option?  It's slower, but networked is faster, 
easier and more flexible.

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Linux Registered User # 302622                         http://counter.li.org>
Fido: 3:712/610  BBS/FAX: +61-2-9716-8310  Internet: jt{at}techniciansyndrome.org

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