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["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

Well, I don't know about this whole line of site thingy.  I do know we were 
told the same thing.  Blessed if I can see the hill where the antennae is! 
And they said we'd have an antennae which would talk to their antennae and 
that nothing could block the "line of site."  So the guy comes out and 
fuzzes and futzes and hooks up his laptop and aims a doohickey here and then 
aims a dookickey there and says "plant your t-post here and go take down 
those limbs off that oak over there.

And then, I kid you not, he comes out with this thing that looks like those 
styrafoam square take home hot foods boxes and attaches it to the t-post. 
THAT is the antennae!  Amazing!

So, I don't know about this whole line of site stuff and I don't know about 
antennaes cause I would never have thought a white box was an antennae! I 
mean, I was expecting something that looked like my CB whip antennae that I 
would have to send someone up a tree to make it work.

Lynda, who is sending this e-mail via the white box <g>
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "EarthNSky" <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>


> Actually, I did find another supplier, Skywave Communications, and they
> are much, much cheaper than Hughesnet.
> http://www.skywaveinternet.com/
> They claim to provide service to my entire county, but I am doubtful.
> They apparently are one of those line of sight deals because in their
> terms of service they speak of installing an antennae.   The little
> towns they list are all on the other side of the ridges out on the river
> plains.
> Try to visualize this:
> My house sits at 925 ft elevation, and I am surrounded by ridges as
> follows...
> to the east(the direction of the company and the town of Calhoun) I have
> an immediate 100 ft hill/knob that peaks within 50 feet of my house.
> Beyond that, 1500 ft Horn Mountain is 1/4 mile away(it runs N to S).
> To the south, I have a 1200 ft ridge(runs E to W) that peaks within 150
> feet of my house.
> To the west there is a 1450 ft ridge, peak distance is about 1000 feet
> away (and other ridges of similar size beyond that)
> Yeah, it is steep all around me.
> To the north there is open space to my pasture, which is at a lower
> elevation than the house(850 or so).  There is a small ridge just beyond
> that running east/west that is not much higher than my house, and
> beyond that miles and miles of National Forest ridges, but it is
> probably at least a half a mile before they get any elevation that might
> impede a signal.
> My only open area is to the North, that is why I can pick up Chicago,
> Nashville, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinatti and Louisville stations, but
> not Atlanta or cities in other direction.  We recently paid to have our
> satellite tv dish moved further north to provide a better view to the
> southern satellite.  The trees on the ridge behind us had grown and we
> began losing the signal.
> Anyway, do you think I have a shot at this Skywave system working, based
> on the surrounding terrain?  How tall are their antennae?  Can this work
> where cell phones won't?
>
> I have an admission to make, Tim.  Until about two weeks ago, I did not
> understand Wifi.  I went to Orlando on business and took the Lab's
> travel laptop, and of course, got Wifi in the hotel, airport, and other
> places.  I started looking and suddenly I see it everywhere-in
> restaurants, parking lots, etc.  Not having a laptop of my own, I
> suppose I never noticed.  Anyway, it was a real education sorting out
> signals in an environment where there were overlapping networks, some of
> which were pay systems.  I just had no clue.  I'll tell ya though,
> connecting at 11 Mbps in my hotel room really spoiled me.  I live too
> far out for there to be any networks here. My friend has Starband and a
> couple of people go down and park on her property to surf the web, apply
> for jobs, etc. -she doesn't care, but as I said before, I don't have a
> laptop.  However, I do know that there are no signals here because my
> daughter brought her new Mac over for me to check out...(I really liked
> it, but that is a whole other thread)
>
> Bev, who is totally amazed that my cole crops, at 17 days old, are ready
> to transplant..they look great!
>
>
>
> Tim Oppenheim wrote:
>
> > I will offer this small hope. There are a number of small companies
> > that offer wireless Internet, even in backwater Arkansas we have a
> > couple. Most are line of site but if you can get on a hill and/ or
> > tower you can be quite a few miles from an access point. As Don noted
> > antennas make the difference. Around here, the one  service no one
> > knows about is by the Motorola guys. I know they have it and it
> > works, but they don't advertise it. So, if you have a Motorola shop
> > you might drop by to see if they have something
>
> --
> Many of our greatest American thinkers, men of the caliber of Thomas
> Jefferson, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, William James, and John Muir, have
> found the forest an effective stimulus to original thought.
> Bob Marshall
>
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