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  • From: "Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Communications
  • Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 21:20:07 -0800

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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