At 9:43 1/3/96, jim bell wrote:
Interestingly enough, my primary objection was NOT really commercial encroachment on an existing amateur structure (though that is an important consideration!); rather, it was the fact that because we're talking really short-range communication (way less than a kilometer, in most cases) using frequencies below a gigahertz would be a counter-productive shame. Here, we WANT "line of sight"! And, of course, the bandwidth issue is inherently better: It would be FAR easier to get 100 MHz width at around 2.5 GHz than under 1 gig!
There are several vendors offering 2.4GHz wireless with ranges up to 20 miles. Though the 900MHz stuff is much cheaper. Unless you have a pager cell on your roof, 900MHz should serve you fine.
I get a free (bingo-card) magazine industry magazine called "Microwaves and RF," which is sort of the EDN for the high-frequency communication crowd. You'd be amazed at the level of technical (chip) development there. Chip sets that do frequency synthesis/full RF/IF on surface mount chips.
If you don't want to build your own, there are various vendors that use the NEC 900MHz bridge card in their products. Or just buy the card, get an old 486, and round up the software from somone.
(BTW, I use Eudora, and I have PGP. Could somebody explain how to PGP-sign messages, ideally EASILY?)
Assuming Eudora for Mac: Download MacPGP Control. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.