From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Sat_ellite Dish Wifi
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 14:00:49 -0500
Message-ID: <dshoq1t73pv8g9l0ctvvlmmkual7p2m9he@4ax.com>

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 14:39:07 GMT, "FMB" <fmbb@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>"loner" <loner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:vb39734E8D23B901001101loner0111001@213.155.197.138...
>> Anyone using a satellite dish to
>> pick up city wifi transmissions?
>> How does it work?
>
>The new world record is claimed to be 125 miles for an unamplified wireless
>network.  The winner used modified satellite dishes.
>http://www.wifi-shootout.com/

Until we parted company, one of my employees was using my network
connection via a WiFi link that was about 4 miles but not line of
sight.  I used two DTV dishes with a simple USB WiFi dongle mounted in
the focus of each. There was a water tower on top of the hill blocking
our path.  I skipped the signal off that tank.

The link was 100% except for VERY heavy fog and heavy rain.

>
>You may be more interested in a Cantenna or such to extend your reach but
>not by 125 miles.  Look at http://www.cantenna.com/ if you are not the
>'builder' or try http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448 if you are
>interested in building your own.

Those things don't work very well.  A Pringles can is just too small
for the wavelength involved.  One made from a pair of coffee cans
soldered together works better.  One made from 3 #10 cans works fairly
well but the assembly is huge.  The improvement people see when
connecting a Cantenna has more to do with the badness of the built-in
Wifi antenna rather than the goodness of the Cantenna.  At least
that's been my experience.

When traveling I use a little homemade yagi antenna, constructed from
bits of aluminum rod and a section of large fishing rod.  The rod is
used for the slip joint that allows the antenna to be broken down for
storage.  I found the plans on the net somewhere.

Last year about this time when I was somewhere on the Gulf coast of
Florida sitting in a beach-side pulloff and shooting across the mouth
of a river at an office complex, looking for a link from which to
fetch email, that yagi was certainly useful.  Even with the USB dongle
on top of the MH roof I could get no signal at all.  With the yagi I
got several full scale signals.

John