[plug] Wanted: dirt cheap wireless LAN

[Jan Schmidt]

<quote who="Harry McNally">

> On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:04:29 +0800 (WST) Mike Holland
> <myk at plug.linux.org.au> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Harry McNally wrote:
> > 
> http://www.alphalink.com.au/~derekw/upntcvr.htm
> 
> .. also makes the interesting point ..
> 
> "
> The need for stable mounting is by far the most significant disadvantage.
> Building structures often move with time, temperature and wind. Building
> foundations also generally move. Anticipate at least monthly realignment
> for all but short (<100 metre) links between very stable buildings.
> "  

The link above references a project I've seen before: 
http://ronja.jikos.cz/

That site has designs (made by an electronics loony who swears PCB's are the
devil, but anyway) for a transmitter receiver that can do 10MBps over 1km. 

Apparently that one is a lot of effort, especially if you know no electronic
design. If you're a electronic design whiz, I know from a friend (who is 
prototyping a commercial implementation) that it is possible to turn the 
basic idea of ronja into a design which can do 100MBps
over that 1km using laser diodes and a better detector circuit

> But then again, fog could be a problem. 

Fog and rain are the biggest stumbling blocks for a system which works on
visible light. Then again, microwave runs into the same problems and they
still use that :)

> Or you'll get some annoying little kids sticking there faces in the
> camera doing that five fingers then two fingers thing. Bless em.

If the little kids can climb the tall pole on your roof, then good for them
:)

J.
-- 
Jan Schmidt                                  thaytan at mad.scientist.com

<stibbons> Yeah.  The whole climax thing would make much more sense
           if I'd paid attention.