Aussies Put Old Pay-TV Dishes To Use -- As A LAN

Insane Hardware writes: "If you thought the olympic show the Aussie's put on was pretty tops, then this will blow your socks off. Insane Hardware sends in word about a group of people in the country's capital, Canberra (just south of Sydney), who are setting up a wireless air network for game play amoungst many other things (pr0n trading???). So how are these guys doing it and doing it cheaply? Well they are using satellite dishes from an old defunct Pay-TV system Australia had some years back called Galaxy, and are using some standard old full-length WaveLAN ISA cards which operate in the 2.4GHz range to hook up to these ol dishes. " (More below.)

Mr. Hardware continues: "Although not the best speeds, approximately 2Mbps with a 2.2ms round trip latency isn't too shabby when you consider the cost and implementation of this. Hell, you can even learn how to make a reciever dish at this site! So how is it powered? Linux of course! Check out www.air.net.au for more info."

Check out the mailing list archives to see how much progress they've made, too -- perhaps some friendly (and entrepreneurial) Slashdot reader can hook a few Canberrans up with wireless cards for cheaper than they can get them down there?