[Cu-wireless] status report; weekend meeting?

[David Young]

Mark,

I think our best bet is to get more people on board. I think we will
upset people if we find them by scanning the airwaves. Better to find them
through existing social connections and by posting on bulletin boards.

Concerning hardware---I apologize ahead of time for the bad jokes:

The only place we use a Demarctech 180mW radio is at IMC. Sorry if I was
not clear about that. The radio there is a PC Card. It attaches to an
external antenna with a teeny-tiny, expensive, relatively rare RP-MMCX
connector, so you need an expensive pigtail. That particular radio cost
$150, but there is a comparable PC Card radio which costs just $100.
Each needs a $40-45 PC Card bridge to plug into one of our Dells.
These are strong, sensitive radios---they are like the perfect man,
that way.

Sorry.

Compare with the 40mW LinkSys radios. Ralph has lent them to us,
so they are "free" to us, but they are only $80 or less to buy. They
plug into any PCI slot. They have a comparatively common, comparatively
inexpensive RP-SMA connector, whose mate we can put directly on the end
of the antenna jumper, so no pigtail is required. Savings galore, huh?
These are not great radios, but they get the job done at short range, and
their price is right---they are like a Saturday Night Special that way.

I apologize, again.

Concerning amps, antenna innovations and improvements. An amp will
easily double the cost of a station.  A phased array of omnis will be
complicated to build, and expensive.  8dBi is about the most gain we can
use, considering that we are communicating at short range from moderate
heights. I am curious what we can achieve with just 5dBi.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Engineering from the Right Brain
                        Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933