Austad, Jay wrote:
> Well range isn't that big of an issue.  It's line of sight.  A 40 foot mast
> is about $70, which should get you above the trees in most areas.  Using a
> 24db dish ($130), you can do about 23 miles with no amplifiers.

It's not _quite_ that simple. You need LOS plus something
called fresnel-zone clearance. There's a fresnel zone
calculator at:

	http://www.ydi.com/fresnel-zone.php

Putting a 24dB dish ontop of a $70 tower is not going to
work too well after a storm or two. (Re-)aligning it
is kind of a challenge too.

All of this work gives you one end of a point-to-point link.

If you're pointing at a central site, along with many
others, you're going to see throughput degrade because of
hidden-node problems (where two leaf-node transmitters
stomp on each other because they can't hear that someone
else is transmitting.) You can lower the RTS/CTS threshold
which will help, at the expense of latency.

Remember also that at these distances, 802.11b is going to
be running at 1 or 2 Mbits.

> You might run into zoning problems with an antenna that tall though.  That's
> why I'm going to get my ham radio license this weekend.  The FCC license
> overrides local ordinances on antenna height.  :)

Glad to see you get licenced. Let me prematurely welcome you
to amateur radio - I'm N0REN aka G1XRL (in a previous life.)

Anyway, let's start collecting approximate locations, so we can see
what we have to deal with.
--
andyw at pobox.com

Andy Warner		Voice: (612) 801-8549	Fax: (208) 575-5634