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Old March 5th 07, 11:19 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
Paul Keinanen Paul Keinanen is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 85
Default Long range rural wireless high speed data options...

On 3 Mar 2007 10:37:18 -0800, "Day Brown" wrote:


I've tried the 900mhz wireless transceiver. which needs a clear LOS
(Line of Sight). I like living in the woods; and I'm not going to
clearcut just so I can get a clear line of sight to the ISP
transmitter tower. Hello?


For usable throughput at reasonable power you definitively need the
LOS path.

To get LOS, all you need is to move your antenna high enough. Towers
up to several hundred meters high are available commercially. Less
reliable solutions are flying the antenna under a kite or a balloon.

If this is too expensive, I would suggest moving to a more densely
populated area. You will have to find an optimum for the cost_of_land
+ cost_of_telecommunication.

As others have suggested, it might be enough if you have a LOS path to
your neighbour and they have a LOS path to their neighbour and finally
one neighbour have LOS contact to the ISP.

One other solution would be to move a repeater to a hilltop visible
both from your site and from the ISP, but there is the problem of
powering it. Solar cells might be an option, unless you live North of
the Arctic circle or the sky is cloudy all the time.

A passive reflector at the hilltop might also be possible, but this
will require very narrow beams, which will require large antennas at
both ends of the link, in practice in the upper microwave bands or
even IR or visible light. However, at these frequencies clouds etc.
will disrupt the communication.

Paul OH3LWR