> 	I do actually have an 80-foot tower that I have free 
> access to and use of. however, it's a silo on a farm in Mayer 
> (40 mi. west of the 'Cities); so the utility of it is a bit 
> limited at the moment. ;)

Well, the guy that runs ingenious-nets.com(or .net, forget which) told me
that he has a 23 mile 802.11b link, using only a 24db directional on each
end, no amplifiers.  After 23 miles, you start running into curvature of the
earth issues, but with an antenna that is 80 feet high, you might be able to
squeeze some more range out of it.  Plus, you can toss an amp on each end
also.  

Say we did build a sweet wireless network...  It's obviously going to have
multiple connections to the internet.  So how do we plan on doing routing?
Do we want people to go out the nearest internet connection?  Or, to get
more complicated, out the *best* internet connection?

Also, I know some of you are looking at Sputnik.  I think to make the free
version work, everyone using it needs to have a sputnik account (created
through their website).  That's not really a problem, but then you don't
really have any way to manage the access yourself on the network.  If
someone has a sputnik account, they get in.  But, I don't think Sputnik
boxes have the ability to route between each other either, they are simply
meant as a NAT device that provides internet access via a captive gateway,
and nothing more.  The commercial version of it looks to be more flexible,
but it obviously costs money.

As far as captive gateways go, I've mentioned this on the TCLUG list...
Netscreen makes a cheap consumer model of their firewall called the 5XP.  It
lists for $495, but I've seen it on ebay cheaper and through resellers for
less (search google for netscreen, and check out the ads on the right side).
The 5XP has captive gateway functionality (web and telnet for sure, possibly
ssh), it can authenticate via a local database, RADIUS, or LDAP server.
Almost everything on it is handled by an ASIC, including IPSec tunnels.
Yes, you can set up tunnels between Netscreens, and they will also talk to
FreeSWAN or anything that speaks standard IPSec.  Also, they have software
for it that supports OSPF and BGP.  I have one at home, and I'd sleep with
it under my pillow if I didn't have to unplug it from the network first. 

Jay