Obviously, if we do a radio solution, the equipment ought to be attached to cans marked W.A.S.T.E :-) At least in the US, you don't have to pirate radio frequencies; there are a few bands that are available for uncensored low-power use, though some of them may require spread-spectrum. Meteor Burst is real stuff, though the last time I knew a little about it the bandwidth was pretty low; e.g. you got 300 baud average throughput doing bursts of 4800 baud with really heavy-duty forward error correction, since it's a pretty sporadic medium. Power usage is really low, and typical applications are things like telemetry from snow-depth recorders out in the mountains, where line-of-sight is essentially unavailable. I don't know how much bandwidth or area you get out of it, or how traceable it is - our meteor expert retired years ago, and was looking at problems like how to build radio data networks that weren't bothered by nuclear explosions. If there's a spare satellite slot available, ALOHANET technology is a reasonably efficient way to use it.