New Wi-Fi Distance Record Set In Utah

cold_sake writes "Wireless guru Rob Flickenger details the known records for Wi-Fi link distances on his latest blog. Included is a new distance record for an un-amplified Wi-Fi link, set by the students of Utah's Weber State University. 82 miles was accomplished with 802.11b."

Comments

Hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, new cases of cancer have appeared all over the Weber State University campus.

Re:Hmm..

[Stray7Xi]

But it's unamplified.. it just means they had a really big antennas.

Re:Hmm..

[tzanger]

The Project Information page lists two 1.5W bidirectional amplifiers. But you are right, two primestar dishes with modified feedhorns, that's good for about 30dB of gain per dish/feedhorn assembly.

Rural areas...

[DakotaK]

Neat, FP. I commented on the rural internet access thing in this thread, saying we need a way to get internet access to the rural areas, and the crazy bastards might have enabled just that. As they say, radness ensues.

Re:Rural areas...

[temojen]

Umm, yeah, I pointed out exactly this in This Comment in reply to your comment on the other thread.

Re:Rural areas...

[DakotaK]

And I posted saying this was cool in a thread based on the idea.

Re:Rural areas...

[The Clockwork Troll]

Gentlemen, you'll both recall I made fun of each of your respective "observations" in aforementioned article threads prior to either of your discovering the other and certainly before this latest silly debate.

Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Figures the Mormons would perfect this technology ... Gotta get those RFID tags tags ready for all the Polygamists' wives

Re:Utah ?

[DarkSarin]

yada yada yada...

you know, it is actually amusing, despite being so far wrong that its pathetic. The LDS church hasn't allowed its members to practice polygamy for over 100 years, and currently excommunicates anyone who tries it.

but yeah, I see why its funny...

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the church only denounces polygamy for practical reasons: it's illegal.

They still teach that in heaven it is righteous and indeed desirable to have multiple wives, and that the natural order (baring laws of man) is polygamy.

Ask any mormon if they believe in polygamy in heaven, or if polygamy would be reinstated were it not illegal & controversial in our society.

The LDS are great people, but they follow a dogma with a lot of uncomfortable baggage.

The church has greatly toned down the extreme aspects of mormonism (read the church history and accounts by Dr. Michael Quinn)

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, it is actually amusing, despite being so far wrong that its pathetic. The LDS church hasn't allowed its members to practice polygamy for over 100 years, and currently excommunicates anyone who tries it.

dum dum dum dum dum.

but yeah, I see why its funny...

smart smart smart smart smart.

Re:Utah ?

[batura]

Sorry, but the guy isn't far off point.

here is this news article

It states between 50,000-80,000 people live in "multiple marriage" households. It also talks about a lawyer in SLC that has 30 wives and escapes legal hassle.

here's another good one

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are _not_ members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If those people say they are members or their practice has anything to do with the church, then they are lying. These people weren't born in the 1850s. And these people receive no protection for their illegal acts, that is why they are prosecuted and excommunicated if they go against the church like that.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 'sects' that still practice polygamy. They are certainly not
mainstream, but they are most definitely 'mormom'.


Do you call a protestant a catholic? Um..., no.
They aren't mormons, especially when they are often involved in sexual molestation. They're criminals. We don't associate with them, and they definately have no faith or church structure like we do.

Besides, there are MUCH bigger things in the Mormom doctrine to make
fun of:) South Park did a great job of it a few episodes back..


Um, ok... but realize both polygamy and these other portrayals have nothing to do with the church, as much as you like to think. You may think this is based on our history, but it is completely wrong. I've already discussed this with people. It may be related, but you don't understand the issues surrounding, thus your lost anyway in your supposed knowledge.

Re:Utah ?

[jcr]

Holy crap! A 35 year old man with fifteen wives, and one of them only 16 years old?

That story was from 1998. Did he get sent up the river?

-jcr

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the Mormon's rewrite their Bible every few decades too. Oh yeah, I also love how the Mom and Dad bodonkadonk every 15 minutes unprotected so they can have as many kids as possible. Why? Oh thats right, to SPREAD their religion. Damn the Mormons. Good thing they're a minority.

Re:Utah ?

[webtre]

how is the parent funny? that's ignorance at its worst. mods need to put the parent where it belongs, with all of the other trolls.

Re:Utah ?

[punkass]

Fucking classic...

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

" I love how the Mormon's rewrite their Bible every few decades too"

Hey my cousin's sister's friend's relative's grandpa once told me that the mormons believe that ...bla bla bla. You people are pathetic. Ever heard of research? Yeah, it helps to know what the hell you are talking about before making ignorant and judgemental statements.

Re:Utah ?

[azuretek]

You seem to have missed the fact that he was excommunicated from the LDS church. The "Mormon" religion doesn't condone or practice polygamy, just because one guy does it doesn't mean the church does. He is off point completely...

Also parts of that "news article" are obviously against the church. Parts like "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the mainstream Mormon Church prefers to be called" is just one example, the LDS churches registered name is indeed "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and they try to make it sound like they just like being called that for some odd reason or some other stupidity, whatever... it just angers me when people say they are all polygamists when clearly it isn't true

Re:Utah ?

[webtre]

I love how the Mormon's rewrite their Bible every few decades too

You, sir, are an ignorant fool. There hasn't been any "rewrites" since Joseph Smith confronted the original printer about mispellings. The Book Of Mormon is the same as it was well before your grandparents were born.

Good thing they're a minority

Anyone who has a good idea about the very concept of numbers wouldn't say that at all.

In closing, either shut your mouth or say something intelligent.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And guess what? NONE OF THESE 50,000-80,000 people are LDS. Whether you like it or not, the LDS church does not practice polygomy.

Maybe you didn't read the article you posted very carefully.

Polygomy "has been banned since 1890 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

"The Church excommunicates advocates of polygamy such as Mr. Green."

If I say I'm catholic and I have 47 wives, does that mean that catholics practice polygomy?

Now, just to keep this post semi on-topic, I wonder why these students opted for 802.11b and not g or a. Much higher bandwidths can be achieved with g and a and similar amplifying techniques can be used. The price of the hardware isn't much different either.

I've got a wlan setup at my house and it's painstakingly slow to transfer files over it. I'm less concerned with the range of a wifi network than I am with the speed of it. Once we have wlan's that can xfer files as fast as our drives can write them, then we should worry about achieving long-distance connectivity. ...or should we worry about making faster drives?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Mormon" religion doesn't condone or practice polygamy

That's not quite true. The LDS doctrine teaches that polygamy is the natural order of things in the highest level of heaven (the celestial kingdom), that our Heavenly Father (GOD) has multiple wives, and that polygamy will be reinstated after the second coming of Christ.

brigham young: "If we could make every man upon the earth get him a wife, live righteously and serve God, we would not be under the necessity, perhaps, of taking more than one wife. But they will not do this; the people of God, therefore, have been commanded to take more wives."

Mormon Doctrine, p. 578: "Obviously the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millenium.(Isa. 4)"

The LDS church history is full of all sorts of uncomfortable beliefs and dogma. The modern LDS church has been sanitized quite a bit to appear as "mainstream christian" as possible, but there is still a lot of these uncomfortable truths hidden there.

Also check out the changes made to Endowment cerimony text over the years. Mormon's can't talk about what does on inside the temple for this cerimony (and other ordinances) but they have extremely similiar links to acts practiced by the Mason's and other occult influences.

Re:Utah ?

[DarkSarin]

Actually no. ANYONE, as I said earlier, who practices polygamy is out of the church. They may identify themselves as believing some of the same tenets, but they are so far off on some things that it is laughable for anyone to call them Mormons.

The truth of the matter is this: polygamy has been practiced by a wide range of religions, including many Christian faiths (one of which is extremely quick to condemn the Mormons for it would be the Baptists--a little known fact is that at the time Joseph Smith introduced polygamy to church doctrine, it was quite common among numerous other churches). Church literature on the matter is quite clear--it is NOT to be practiced.

As for those who claim that it was changed only due to the legal pressure, you are, indeed partially correct. There was, however, a number of years between the time when polygamy was made illegal, and when the church officially ended the practice. However, to say that this is inconsistent is missing some of the bigger picture, since the church clearly states that subjection to, and obedience of, national governments is part of the religion.

The church has a lot of "baggage", as one poster put it, but compared to that of other religions, it is small. The Catholic church, for example, has much more to answer for. Because while polygamy is legally banned in the US, and the concept makes people uncomfortable now (personally I think having multiple wives would drive me insane--one is enough, even though I love her dearly), certain other churches have baggage like condoned murder, witch trials, and widespread child abuse to deal with.

So while it is fun to poke at the Mormon church, remember that if you are religious, then your own church probably has its own baggage (and strange doctrines) to deal with. It is a part of religion, since humans would really like to make everyone believe exactly what they do.

Oh, and before some genius decides to make a crack about the Mormons wanting everyone to believe what they do, one of the basic tenets is that we believe everyone should be allowed to worship how, where or WHAT they may. That is not incompatible with the idea that information regarding our beliefs should be spread as widely as possible.

For those who think they know more about the subject than a Mormon, I politely suggest to you that you are wrong. We start learning about our church history (all of it) at a very early age. Many of us have served in leadership positions, and we all have a vested interest in knowing all the arguments against the church. I can probably come up with more of the common criticisms than 90% of people outside the church.

I wish you all a good night--gotta finish this paper I'm writing (Organizational predictors of workplace aggression). Yuck.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The church has a lot of "baggage", as one poster put it, but compared to that of other religions, it is small.

The problem is that the LDS church continues to hold onto this baggage. They are in an uncomfortable position of having living prophets proclaim the importance of polygamy while at the same time having to adjust to modern times and laws.

You can't say "Oops, didn't mean that, we take it back" if you claim to have a prophet who receives instruction directly from god.

Note that similiar things have occured and will continue to occur in church doctrine. The changing wording of the LDS endowment cerimony makes people wonder "why didn't god give us the right version in the first place?". The now removed references to disembowlment, throat cutting, and fighting against the US government seem like foolish emblishments now, but were actually part of the original endowment cerimony.

Dont bother asking a mormon about it, they are sworn to secrecy. You can however read more here:

LDS Temple Endowment

Also interesting to read is the account of Dr. Michael Quinn who was a well respected Elder in the church and professor of history at BYU. He began to study LDS history and publishing his findings until unpleasant aspects of the religion started drawing attention.

At that point, given the choice to censor his work, or leave the church, he was excommunicated. The LDS leadership wants certain things NOT DISCUSSED and are very clear that you will be run out of the church as an "apostate" if you try to challenge their authority on the matter.

On Being A Mormon Historian by Dr. Michael Quinn.

To the old blood in the church, the memory of the "apostate intellectuals" being purged en masse back in the 70's and 80's is still a vivid memory.

Re:Utah ?

[DarkSarin]

Oh that's great. Quote Mormon Doctrine. Sorry bud, but that is not an authoritative work.

As far as a woman being sealed to more than one man, you are technically correct, but actually wrong. Young widows are free to remarry, and though they cannot be "sealed", it is believed that such arrangements will be straightened out after this life.

As for myself, I find this doubly amusing, because you are overlooking the fact that it is possible for a sealing to be cancelled (most common equivalent would be annullment in Catholic doctrine). I know this because my wife was previously sealed to a loser husband. She had this sealing cancelled, and we are now sealed. I suppose that under the right conditions, a young widow could have her sealing to her first husband cancelled if she wanted (though I am not certain).

I have known many men who have married young widows, without being sealed. They do so under the belief that it will all be straightened out later.

As for "Mormon Doctrine", again, it is not considered authoritative, though some inside the church make the mistake of using it that way--and it annoys me to no end. Bruce R. McKonkie (sp?) was a very intelligent man, but he was not commissioned by the church to write that book, nor has it ever been officially sanctioned. Compare that to, say Jesus the Christ, by James E. Talmage, and you will find quite a difference in how it is handled. Church leaders rarely, if ever, quote McKonkie on doctrine. Talmage's work, however, is frequently quoted (and is was commissioned by the Church president at the time).

I hate to tell you, but I've heard all the arguments against the church (numerous times). Yes, polygamy is a difficult spot, since as you say a man may be sealed to multiple wives, but not at the same time. A man may not, at this time, be sealed to more than one living woman. Period. If she is dead, then what do you care?

If you aren't a believer, then our doctrine of sealing and eternal families shouldn't bother you, since you don't believe that anyone is married to anyone after death. The LDS church is the ONLY church that teaches the doctrine of continued marriage after death. Personally, I find the idea to be very wonderful. I love my wife, and to be able to spend eternity with her would be a blessing beyond measure.

As a side note, don't post AC, even on these topics. It really hampers responsibility. I try to avoid it at all costs, even when it means saying something that might hurt me, or cause me to be labeled as a troll.

Re:Utah ?

[DarkSarin]

It's amusing, really. I've heard these same arguments numerous times.

The neat part about having a living prophet is that it is possible to recieve guidance that is relevant to the current times. There are times when things are no longer important, and then it is possible for a prophet to recieve divine guidance (this is providing you accept the idea that there is a prophet).

As for Dr. Quinn's story--there are numerous others, and I have read them. I am still firm in my belief, and will remain so.

Allow me to make one other thing clear--no living prophet in my lifetime has condoned polygamy--yours either (unless you are well over 100 years old).

Re:Utah ?

[Afrosheen]

The "Mormon" religion doesn't condone or practice polygamy

That's not quite true. The LDS doctrine teaches that polygamy is the natural order of things in the highest level of heaven (the celestial kingdom), that our Heavenly Father (GOD) has multiple wives, and that polygamy will be reinstated after the second coming of Christ.

brigham young: "If we could make every man upon the earth get him a wife, live righteously and serve God, we would not be under the necessity, perhaps, of taking more than one wife. But they will not do this; the people of God, therefore, have been commanded to take more wives."

Mormon Doctrine, p. 578: "Obviously the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millenium.(Isa. 4)"

The LDS church history is full of all sorts of uncomfortable beliefs and dogma. The modern LDS church has been sanitized quite a bit to appear as "mainstream christian" as possible, but there is still a lot of these uncomfortable truths hidden there.

Also check out the changes made to Endowment cerimony text over the years. Mormon's can't talk about what does on inside the temple for this cerimony (and other ordinances) but they have extremely similiar links to acts practiced by the Mason's and other occult influences.

At the risk of being modded down for being offtopic, good point Anonymous Coward. Too bad I don't have mod points or I'd give you props.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard these same arguments numerous times.

Indeed, it's all been said before. For decades. I'm not trying to criticize the LDS members; but rather let those who are unfamiliar with this information receive it and come to their own conclusions.

These are the things you don't hear about every day in church service, conferences, or other functions, however they are very much a part of the church history, its current doctrine, and its future.

As you said, there is nothing I can say or do that will change your faith in the church or your testimony of the gospel. That is an intimately personal thing, and text is merely a hollow shadow in the face of heartfelt conviction.

Polygamy is dead for recent history, as you state. However, it is still part of the Celestial kingdom, and still stated to be resumed during the millenium after Christs second coming. This is what I meant by prophets proclaiming the importance of polygamy: the meaning is clear - polygamy is required in the celestial kingdom to fulfill the duties as a heavenly father over your own future world, complete with your own spiritual children, and the fulfillment of celestial blessings of the greater number of women who make it to this kingdom as compared to men.

Again, i'm not trying to link the LDS church with the reorganized mormons (the excommunicated or fringe element that currectly advocates and practices polygamy here and now).

But I do find the church's absolute denouncement of polygamy decietful at times, as it is still a core tenet of life in the celestial kingdom, and other parts of the doctrine.

Re:Utah ?

[DarkSarin]

Can't remember the last time, but it does happen. It's just not something that I worry about.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, this thread really got the mormon cultists oozing out of the woodwork...

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the Mormon's rewrite their Bible every few decades too.

The LDS church uses the "King James" version of the bible. A very common and well respected translation.

You are probably referring to the Book of Mormon, which is also static and has been for decades. You can probably find / buy a really old copy and a new one and compare for yourself.

Note that changing footnotes, context, and other introductory information is not "rewriting the bible".

I am not LDS, but I have a deep respect for their values and outlook on family, personal responsibility, and fellowship.

You may find their religion annoying, but spewing hatred and false information is no way to win converts.

Go meet an active LDS member or two. They make great neighbors and wont bother you if you make it clear you are not interested in learning more.

Re:Utah ?

[HarryCallahan]

It's funny because it's true, now lighten up jerk off

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side note, don't post AC, even on these topics. It really hampers responsibility

That attitude might hold some weight if your name were really "DarkSarin."

What you really want is to identify your enemies by username so you can mark them as such and modbomb them later. So why not just say so?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And as we all know, all comedy is 100% grounded in the real, factual, and methodically researched.

Lighten the fuck up, man. It's a passing jab at a Mormon stereotype. Big deal.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Webtre,

You, sir, are an ignorant fool.

I understand your ignorance webtre. I was brainwashed like you. It's takes some study and reading to find out that you are the fool.

Not only have Mormons rewritten their scriptures but they've also rewritten their history. But Technology is the light. Let me show you using tools that are familiar to all brainwashed Mormons:


Here we have the Churches own geneology database:
That there is your founder's record:

Notice a couple of things that don't quite fit in with your understanding of polygamy:

#1 Helen Mar Kimball was only 14 years old when he married JS. (You probably thought that polygamy was due to a lack of men in the day. Nope. Many young teenage girls were married to JS long before they had a chance to marry someone else. )

#2 Notice Zina Huntington: She was married to another man when she married JS. (Yeah Polyandry was also practiced. JS married women that were married to other men. Several times. You'll find several examples. )

Now in all your Mormon history studies have you ever read such things? No. Because Mormon history has be "re-written".

It's kind of funny that you can dispell so much of the "re-written" history by simply using the Mormon churches own sources..

While your at it I suggest a good reading of Section 132: http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/132
That will answer you any doubt that you might have regarding Joseph's sexual activity with these teenage girls.
It will help you to see that you infact are the ignorant fool.

Good news is that through the magic of the Internet you can free your mind + give yourself a 10% raise. Good Luck!!!!!!!!!

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want to find information about the Catholic church believes, am I going to go to the Jehova's Witnesses to find out about it? Or to a protestant church? Hell no, anyone can give a negative view about something they don't agree with. Everyone has their "truths" and will try to defend it.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. LDS members are hands down the nicest and most helpful people I have met (as a demographic).

Can you see the ignorance that exudes from this post? You're stereotyping Mormons as a demographic, placing them on a higher plain than all others. Your supremicist statements aren't helping your PR maneuver to deflect criticism on your highly held dogma. Hinkley would be so ashamed.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want to find information about the Catholic church believes, am I going to go to the Jehova's Witnesses to find out about it?

Of course not! There is a huge deal of malignant crap published about the LDS church and purporting to be factual. "The god makers" is especially trash-worthy, as is anything printed by the Baptists about the LDS.

But there is also a large amount of information that is "unflattering" to the church, which they would just as well forget. The many years of LDS historical work (at BYU no less), using archives that are now sealed, falls into this category.

I have specifically mentioned only things which are well founded in LDS doctrine itself, not external sources, and not speculation.

For example, the mountain medows massacre is often used to slight the LDS church at the time, but lacks any kind of significant detail to draw solid conclusions from.

Re:Utah ?

[batura]

To redefine, I don't give two-shits if they were LDS or not. Just that they are from Utah. If you look at the top parent, it doesn't say anything about LDS, just Yetah. The parent below that brought LDS excommunication into play.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. Mormons aren't given historical information that casts any doubt on it's authenticity. Manuals are printed to guide instruction so that touch subjects are glossed over. Sensitive doctrines like polygamy are avoided and rarely mentioned. In one of the more recent manuals a quote by Brigham Young was changed from "wives" to wife.

It will be interesting to see what effect a free flow of ideas will have on the Mormon religion. The Internet will no doubt take it's toll.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now in all your Mormon history studies have you ever read such things? No. Because Mormon history has be "re-written".

It's not re-written as much as it is supressed and avoided. If you even now read through denunciations of polygamy, you can read between the lines how they direct their refutations at specific instances: polygamy in the US against civil law, etc.

The LDS church is in an interesting position where they simultaneously need to affirm the spiritual authenticity of the church leadership at the time (Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, etc), while simultaneously denouncing many of their practices and pronouncements in latter context.

The result is that the "unpleasant" details of history are avoided, cast in a friendly light, partially denounced, while the details remain unknown.

A perfect example of this is that many church leaders present polygamy as "a trial and burden" meant to test the saints. You can take this at face value (as a member) but dont be surprised when others look at a man consistently and secretly marrying and having sex with extremely young girls as nothing but deceitful and predatory .

Can the church denounce Joseph Smith as an errant soul while simultaneously affirming the validity of the church and its doctrine? The two are bound together (for eternity).

The real shame in all of this is how the church fosters and environment of "all or nothing" and "us against them". You cannot be a "mostly agreeing except for this" member of the church. You cannot argue about doctrine without a member taking it personally (well, very rarely).

You must accept the entirity of the gospel with faith, and an attack against aspects of the church history and doctrine thus become an attack against the church member, an attack against the church, and confirmation that satan is indeed actively working to deceive and defame the LDS at every turn.

The LDS members are wonderful people. They deserve praise for the values they instill in their children, each other, and communities as a whole.

They also deserve an unobstructed explanation of many of these unpleasant details in church history which are actively avoided / supressed. Church leaders are fallable, and there is no reason to think the church itself is without stain.

But masking over a problem only delays the eventual resolution, with interest.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be interesting to see what effect a free flow of ideas will have on the Mormon religion. The Internet will no doubt take it's toll.

I used to think this was the case, but now I'm not so sure. The only group who seems to benefit from this open information are those curious about joining the church and learning more before becoming baptized, or watching a family member do so.

Those already in the church are taught about the evils of "anti-mormon" literature, and its ability to poisen the soul and destroy a testimony of the gospel. But when factual history that is unflattering to the church becomes "anti-mormon" all potential communication via this method is lost.

I find this dichotomy the most interesting of all LDS beliefs: You are taught that the gift of the Holy Ghost bestowed via baptism gives you the gift of "discernment"; the ability to tell truth from lie as the holy spirit will only 'testify' to the validity of truth. How then can lies be damaging to a testimony of the gospel?

And last but not least the life an LDS member is extremely bound up in the social circles within the church membership.

There is a significant and noticable impact on long time members who leave or are excommunicated from the church. They suffer from depression and other mental ills, and are at a much greater suicide risk.

Some would say this is evidence of the truth of the gospel, if being without can cause such damage. However the real reason lies in the abrupt loss of social structure and significant changes in a belief system.

These types of dramatic changes occur in other contexts, and the resulting isolation, depression and suicide risk are the same.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think this was the case, but now I'm not so sure. The only group who seems to benefit from this open information are those curious about joining the church and learning more before becoming baptized, or watching a family member do so.

Those already in the church are taught about the evils of "anti-mormon" literature, and its ability to poisen the soul and destroy a testimony of the gospel. But when factual history that is unflattering to the church becomes "anti-mormon" all potential communication via this method is lost.

That is true. I grew up in a very strict orthodox Mormon family. I served a mission and have been involved in leadership callings up until about 6 months ago when I took the Red Pill.

I know there are many like me. I have friends that have done the same thing. 10 years ago information wasn't available like it is now. If you wanted to know more about Mormon history you could only find it in a library. Today there's hundreds of sites for Mormons to do their research.

Add the recent DNA and acheological evidence that refutes Mormonism and you have a recipe for members leaving in droves.

Our little discussion might be read by someone. That person may not imediately go do research but that seed of doubt will start to grow. Over time that person will get interested. He'll read both pro and con arguments and boom! We'll have another apostate.

There is a significant and noticable impact on long time members who leave or are excommunicated from the church. They suffer from depression and other mental ills, and are at a much greater suicide risk.

This is true. Depression is a problem. It was easier when I found out that Santa Clause wasn't real.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you see the ignorance that exudes from this post? You're stereotyping Mormons as a demographic, placing them on a higher plain than all others.

Heheh, so cruel of me!

The fact is the LDS church toots their own on many occasion with demographic statistics. Who are the healthiest group of people in the US? (The most aggresively proselytic :-)

The fact is, the LDS membership as a whole (all generalizations are false) are friendly, happy people who make great friends and neighbors.

There is no ignorance (having known many for a long time) in this assertion, nor is there supremacy implied: I would not trade their lifestyle for my own, but I will give credit where credit is due.

The LDS way of life requires deep commitment to their faith, their family, their interactions with others, and even restricted diet.

That is bound to have effect (better health, happy people in strong social groups) on such a multi-million member entity no matter what you argue.

But I still wouldn't trade it for my jaded nihilism :-)

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't mormons, especially when they are often involved in sexual molestation. They're criminals. We don't associate with them, and they definately have no faith or church structure like we do.

For everyone else: This is an example of cult training. This person has been trained to ignore anything that is negative about his/her religion. Notice the accusation that polygamists are child molesters while these child molesters are only following the example of their founder, Joseph Smith.

It really is amazing that reality can be modified by repetition and affirmation. Look at this:
You may think this is based on our history, but it is completely wrong. I've already discussed this with people. It may be related, but you don't understand the issues surrounding, thus your lost anyway in your supposed knowledge.

This person is almost trying to deny the Mormon involvement with polygamy. This is a true-life Matrix scenario. Reality altered by repetition. Amazing.........

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our little discussion might be read by someone. That person may not imediately go do research but that seed of doubt will start to grow. Over time that person will get interested.

I have a working assumption that there is a specific subset of children raised in the church who grow up "taking it at face value" and yet feel like Neo in the matrix: something just underneath your skin wondering

"is this true? did this happen? why does this feel constructed|not-quite-logical?"

For these members (and there are many: church estimates put inactive members at over 50%, many departed do not have their records removed) the information online and elsewhere is more of a confirmation of what they suspected at times, a view of a larger world that they could intuit and sense, but not see directly.

For the happy LDS member in good standing with a strong testimony, the most damning of physical evidence would be useless to sway their commitment and belief to the church.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side note, don't post AC, even on these topics. It really hampers responsibility. I try to avoid it at all costs, even when it means saying something that might hurt me, or cause me to be labeled as a troll.

...DarkSarin also finds it more helpful so he call tell God exactly which user to smite.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the happy LDS member in good standing with a strong testimony, the most damning of physical evidence would be useless to sway their commitment and belief to the church.

That may be true but there will come a time when the beliefs held by Mormonism stray too far from the general public that the common member can't ignore it. That point was struck back in the 1970s. Members started wondering why people of African Decent couldn't hold the priesthood.

There was a quick fix for that. In the 1970s your happy member didn't have the kind of information readily available for those questioning biggoted beliefs. Now any mormon can find a wealth of information by searching google in the comfort of their own home.

There are still positions that the Mormon church holds that are far from politically correct. Some of them will be tough to fix with a revelation. Take the stance on homosexuality. So much has been said about homosexuality that a revelation condoning it will really blow the doors off some members. They might have to compensate with a revelation that alcohol is ok or something.;)

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't mormons, especially when they are often involved in sexual molestation. They're criminals.

Riddle me this: Would you consider a man in his thirties who coerces young women (lets say 15-17) into a sexual relationship in complete secrecy a criminal?

What if this man has shown a pattern of secretive liasons with over half a dozen teenage women, 5 of them under the age of 18, and some as young as 15, and pleas with them all to keep it absolutely secret.

Would you associate with that person?

That person is JOSEPH SMITH - founder of the LDS Church

Ages of the teenage wives which he coerced and took in secret (even from their own families):

Sarah LAWRENCE age 17
Zina Diantha HUNTINGTON age 19
Nancy Mariah WINCHESTER age 15-16
Helen Mar KIMBALL age 15
Lucy WALKER age 17
Sarah Ann WHITNEY age 17
Malissa LOTT age 19

They are all listed there in the Ancestral File archive. Check it out yourself.

You may think this is based on our history, but it is completely wrong.

With that kind of paedophillic example from the creator of the original LDS / Mormon church, that sure sounds like its based on history and completely factual.

Think about a man you respect the most in your life. What if they did this? Leave a bad taste in your mouth?

With all of the paedophile freaks out there making the news, this kind of secretive, exploitative preying on young women/girls is all to easy to identify.

How does it feel to know the roots of your religion are based in such a tainted source?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ages of the teenage wives which he coerced and took in secret (even from their own families):

Sarah LAWRENCE age 17
Zina Diantha HUNTINGTON age 19
Nancy Mariah WINCHESTER age 15-16
Helen Mar KIMBALL age 15
Lucy WALKER age 17
Sarah Ann WHITNEY age 17
Malissa LOTT age 19

Gee. I wonder why people have to be so negative about mormonism. You must be a biggot. Or even worse an "Anti Mormon"!!!

With all of the paedophile freaks out there making the news, this kind of secretive, exploitative preying on young women/girls is all to easy to identify.

And all this press on Michael Jackson....

How does it feel to know the roots of your religion are based in such a tainted source?

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh. That's got to be "anti-moromon". That source isn't produced by the first presidency so it could be wrong( Mormon Doctrine Ref).

Re:Utah ?

[PureFiction]

Wow, I thought this had to be a troll, but the link looks legit.

The church calls this guy a prophet, just like the ones in biblical times. Maybe I need to use their "Ask a question" link for info on Chesters in the old testament...

15 years old is too young for this guy no matter how you slice it. Sheesh.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years old is too young for this guy no matter how you slice it. Sheesh.

Now everyone. Here is a rational, non-programmed intellect. He can easily see the flaw in the logic. A cult program person would say, "Hey that's not right." despite the fact that the source is coming from a site that is owned and sponsered by their organization.

Don't believe me? Watch what your mormon friends say when you show them.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the disclaimer at the bottom of the page you are using for the source of this information

Ancestral File is a collection of genealogical information taken from Pedigree Charts and Family Group Records submitted to the Family History Department since 1978. The information has not been verified against any official records. Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the file to verify its accuracy.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying that the data is wrong? Do you not think that joseph smith, of all people, would have one of the most complete pedigree's of anyone in the early church?

The LDS church spends a huge sum of money buying archives, records, census data, and anything else to aid genealogical research. If you are mormon, you know this. That data is correct, and can be cross verified in many other sources.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years old is too young for this guy no matter how you slice it.

Well, you can slice it in context. In the mid-19th century, the usual age of consent was around 10 to 13. That's a little early, though--typical marriages happened between the ages of 13 and 16. That's young to us, but then, girls that age in the 21st century have just recently embarked on a journey of near-endless adolescence. Girls that age in the 19th century were more like women.

That's not to say that it was easy for the women (most of whom were older than the sample ages the grandparent gave) who married Joseph Smith. Read In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith for an interesting account.

Re:Utah ?

[LWATCDR]

Yet if it was a an all black college and someone made a racial joke it would be flamebait, troll, and off topic.

Re:Utah ?

[PureFiction]

Well, you can slice it in context. In the mid-19th century, the usual age of consent was around 10 to 13.

No, the youngest age of conset was around 10-13, and reading wiki-pedia entries does not constitute research.

Also, when someone married at that age, they were very rarely in their thirties! I'm personally appalled that you can even begin to rationalize this behavior.

Re:Utah ?

[John Harrison]

Seems to have brought the ACs out too.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the youngest age of conset was around 10-13,

"Youngest age of consent" is redundant. Making "youngest" bold emphasizes the redundancy.

and reading wiki-pedia entries does not constitute research.

Um, right back at you? Actually, it was meant more as a handy reference than research. I'll let you know when I publish the actual paper. Sheesh.

Re:Utah ?

[PureFiction]

If this is a pedantic discussion let me rephrase:

"The youngest age of consent at the time may be argued at 10-13. A more reasonable interpretation would put this at 12-14"

The age for males was closer to 15. There is a huge difference between a 15 year old and a 12 year old getting married, and a 35+ year old and a 14 year old.

The first is very young to be married, the latter criminal sexual assault / statuatory rape.

Does this not phase you? If this were done today that would be quite a prison sentence.

Please dont reply with "things were different then". Sexual abuse has never been acceptable in any society, and the coersive use of "loss of eternal life for you and your family" against these young girls is abhorrent. ... you never answered my question; doesn't this bother you at all to rationalize / defend this kind of exploitation / rape?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a racial joke? SOMEONE MOD THIS DOWN!

The difference here is that mormon's started polygamy in Utah, and now they are living with the evil they brought. This makes the joke funny as it combines irony with a mental image of teenage wives running around with RFID stuck to them.

Racial jokes just aren't that funny.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is, the LDS membership as a whole (all generalizations are false) are friendly, happy people who make great friends and neighbors.

As a non-Mormon Utahn, I can assure you all that Mormons in fact make horrible neighbors (unless you're Mormon). Once they discover you're not Mormon by making blind assumptions and asking you what ward you go to, non-Mormon households are excluded from neighborhood activities.

Meanwhile, they send the missionaries, who came a few times a year for at least the first 10 or 12 years I lived there, despite our repeated statements of non-interest. I suppose this all goes along with their belief that since you're not Mormon, you're going to hell anyway. So why bother actually being decent to us?

On top of this general cult-like mentality, Mormons are misogynistic, homophobic, hypocritical (ask a Mormon how it suddenly become okay to drink 'cold' caffeine when the church bought stock in Cola Cola), and in general a most unpleasant people. There are most certainly exceptions, and I don't dislike individual Mormons simply because they are Mormon, but to say they are friendly and good neighbors as a whole is in and of itself a false generalization.

(Keep in mind this is in Salt Lake, where Mormons actually aren't a majority... I can only imagine the horrors of living in rural Utah.)

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funnier than this stupid joke.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had 50 kids, you'd want RFID too. Plus GPS. And maybe a Chester Detector for when the church elders come around.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad i have never lived there! They must get worse in higher concentrations., Like the rats that eat their young and others when crowded.

Re:Utah ?

[eqkivaro]

Yet if it was a an all black college and someone made a racial joke it would be flamebait, troll, and off topic

The difference being that one *chooses* to be a moron, er mormon, so it's perfectly acceptable to make fun of them. ;-o

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That may be true but there will come a time when the beliefs held by Mormonism stray too far from the general public that the common member can't ignore it."

Heaven forbid that this ever happen? Society is rapidly getting flushed down the toilet (see your nearest TV) ...I can assure you that beliefs held by Mormons will definately stray...while they won't change, society's views certainly will! Anyways, this tread is useless...

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

while they won't change, society's views certainly will!

That's funny as hell, considering it already changed for polygamy (then back again), colored priesthood holders, and who knows what else...

Re:Utah ?

[b-baggins]

Nancy Mariah Winchester was sealed to Joseph Smith two years after his death. Throw that one out.

Let's add some others.

Desdemona Wadsworth FULLMER: 31
Mary Elizabeth ROLLINS, widowed: 24
Eliza Roxey SNOW: 38
Martha MCBRIDE: 37
Prescendia Lathrop HUNTINGTON, widowed: 31
Rhoda RICHARDS: 59

Perhaps the picture isn't as simple as you paint.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you can slice it in context. In the mid-19th century, the usual age of consent was around 10 to 13. That's a little early, though--typical marriages happened between the ages of 13 and 16. That's young to us, but then, girls that age in the 21st century have just recently embarked on a journey of near-endless adolescence. Girls that age in the 19th century were more like women.

Are you serious? You didn't just say what I thought you said. Are you bending history to make yourself feel better about your religion? Where the hell do you get 10 to 13? It was not common or accepted for a 13 year old to marry a 35 year old man. This is complete bullshit.

All of this was happening during the Victorian time period. Attitudes on sex were much more conservative. That is why all of this was done in secret.

It's crazy what people will say and do to defend a man that's central to their religion.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you get these numbers? You need to subtract the date of birth from the date of marriage, not death.

Whats the problem? Can't admit you follow a religion of molesters and rapists?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of those women were married to other men at the time Joseph wed/bed them?

If you are trying to paint this guy as a non-creep, it isn't working. Especially considering some of those women were married to friends that trusted this guy as a spiritual leader!!! I would be soo pissed off.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please dont reply with "things were different then". Sexual abuse has never been acceptable in any society, and the coersive use of "loss of eternal life for you and your family" against these young girls is abhorrent. ... you never answered my question; doesn't this bother you at all to rationalize / defend this kind of exploitation / rape?

Isn't it amazing that a group with the piety of the Mormons can try to justify child rape when it involves their founder. A group that looks down on members that drink an occasional coke can justify the rape of young girls with excuses like "The age of consent back in those days was 10-13".

That South Park Jingle keeps coming back into my my head:

Joseph Smith was a prophet dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

Re:Utah ?

[b-baggins]

Check the math yourself. The link is readily available. (Which is pretty stupid if the church were trying to hide all this.) The ages were calculated from marriage date minus birth date.

Joseph Smith was killed in 1844. A marriage date of 1846 would make that a posthumous sealing. In fact, a good portion of the wives listed were posthumous sealings.

All I did was give a more representative sampling of the data and a reasonable observation.

If you look at the death locations for nearly all of these wives, it would seem they followed Brigham Young out to Utah, and many of them remarried. That would imply they remained followers of the faith even after Joseph's Smith's death, and married other men in the faith. Not the typical response of a victim of molestation or rape.

The fact is, the picture is not as simple as the parent tried to make it.

I'm sorry you feel so threatened by Mormonism that you have to attack it.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the picture isn't as simple as you paint.

So the fact that he was banging women his age while he was having sex with 14 year olds makes it ok? You lost me.

My suggestion is to read D&C 132 carefully. This was sexual abuse no matter how you slice it. You'd have to be a misogynist to say otherwise.

Re:Utah ?

[b-baggins]

You're thinking John C. Bennet with his teachings on Spiritual Wifery. He was excommunicated for that and then went back east and started writing all sorts of fun things about the Mormons.

I understand that telling yourself Joseph Smith was total slime makes it easy for you to reject the message. Maybe the question you should be asking is: What makes the message so threatening that you have to find a reason to reject it? Personally, I suspect the answer is Joseph Smith brings God a little too close for comfort. If he was a prophet, and Hinckley is a prophet today, then that means God is here. Now. Watching you. A lot of people don't like that idea.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

All I did was give a more representative sampling of the data and a reasonable observation.

Ignore the smoke and mirrors, this man was no paedophile!

So by your reasoning its ok he raped young girls because he also wed some older women his own age (many of whom were married to his church fellows). And some of them were sealed later.

Makes perfect sense!

That would imply they remained followers of the faith even after Joseph's Smith's death

Yeah, they had plenty of options out in the middle of nowhere! Do you really think these girls (the teenagers) were not raped? Really? Can you say that with a straight face?

and married other men in the faith. Not the typical response of a victim of molestation or rape.

I hate to break it to you, but staying with the rest of the group is your only option as a second rate female among this patriarchial abusive collection of liars and rapists. How long would these girls last in the wild without shelter or food?

The fact is, the picture is not as simple as the parent tried to make it.

Once again, please tell me (for my own personal benefit) that as a follower of Jesus Christ and his teachings, you see NOTHING WRONG with a 35+ year old man coercing young teenage girls into polygamous sex under threat of their eternal salvation.

Please, just state that once and I'll consider this conversation ended.

I'm sorry you feel so threatened by Mormonism that you have to attack it.

I'm threatened by a dogma so entrenched in the minds of the LDS members that they can justify child rape as some kind of "ordinance from god".

Re:Utah ?

[jimbobb23]

HI. I am an epidemiologist thinking this was a mildly amusing discussion until some craziness got spouted. As you can read in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the Mormons have one of the lowest rates of suicide in the world. Additionally, from an epi standpoint they are a unique religion as being the only religion where education and religiosity are positively correlated, ie the more educated you become, the more faithful you become. Also, they are the only group found where family size has no negative impact on intelligence outcomes (though admittedly, this original research is dubious due to the small association discovered and the constraint placed on them by their tools). So, flame away, but the myths about suicide and depression do not bear out in stringent epi research.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

READ THE LINKS BEEFCAKE. That is joseph smith's family tree. This has nothing to do with John C. Bennet (whoever the hell that is...)

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is, the picture is not as simple as the parent tried to make it.

For those of you that are not Mormon and reading in: Here's a sample of the most effective Mormon defense. They spew a number on unimportant facts to try to cloud the issue. Then you make the situation seem complicated. So complicated that you just can't comprend why it's the way it is.

If you read Mormon apologetics you see this technique over and over again. It has little effect on people that aren't Mormon but it satisfies most doubters within the church.

Take a look at the DNA evidence of the American Indian. It clearly shows that the Amerinds are decended from Mongolian peoples. The Book of Mormon states that they are from middle eastern decent.

You'll see apologist after apologist talk about how complex DNA sequencing is. They'll throw a ton of jargon and technical words and a few theories that completely ignore Occam's Razor. That's usually enough satisfy the doubters.

I'm sorry you feel so threatened by Mormonism that you have to attack it.

Here's another technique. It's a good PR move. Make yourself out to be the victim. Ignore the fact that your own faith sponsors biggoted hatred toward people of color and homosexuals. This man has been trained in the art of deflection. Good show mate!

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people have claimed that the mormons have "changed their beliefs"...like a couple years back I heard that the Mormons all of a sudden decided to believe en Jesus Christ (the stupidest thing I have ever heard...they always HAVE!) - To anyone that says such I would invite you to read the Articles of Faith written by Joseph Smith.

The thing is...everyone says the church tries to "hide" its history and such. Well I admit that not all the Mormon church's history is a great beam of light BUT, its only normal that the church is going to tell its members not to read Anti-Mormon literature. Lets take, for example, a 4 year old. If you put him in front of the TV and subject him to the advertising for about a half hour during the regular afternoon programming block (and especially during Christmas) he's gonna come to his parents with a 20 foot long list of stuff toys he thinks he wants! Now with a 12 year old thats not as likely to happen. Why? A 4 year old is much more easily influenced! Someone who is new to the Mormon church has a very hard time seperating truth from much of the flat out lies that are spread by many ingorant fools. The mormon church will not try to tell someone "dont read that!" ...hell we have our agency and can do what we please.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the Mormons have one of the lowest rates of suicide in the world.

I'm talking about recently departed Mormon's, either excommunicated or otherwise. Check those stats out and tell us what you find (mental disorders like depression and anxiety too)

the only religion where education and religiosity are positively correlated, ie the more educated you become, the more faithful you become.

How in the world can this be measured? Sounds pretty relative and open to interpretation. Suicide is well defined though.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I admit that not all the Mormon church's history is a great beam of light BUT,

child molesting and rape is ok? Seriously, how can you possibly be an appologist for Joseph Smith?

The mormon church will not try to tell someone "dont read that!" ...hell we have our agency and can do what we please.

Apparently you haven't read much church history. The church does indeed tell members what to read and what not to read.

As for ignorant lies, these can be avoided. But what about legitimate history that is unfavorable to the church? This is censored as "anti" in the same manner as overtly deceptive crud like "the god makers" and baptist propaganda.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As you can read in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the Mormons have one of the lowest rates of suicide in the world. Additionally, from an epi standpoint they are a unique religion as being the only religion where education and religiosity are positively correlated, ie the more educated you become, the more faithful you become.

This is awesome. This is an apologist regurgitating some old mormon urban legend and qualifying it with his seal as a Doctor and an epidemiologist at that. Critics of your dogma have posted links to proof. You're spewing heresay.
American Journal of Epidemiology, the Mormons have one of the lowest rates of suicide in the world
What month? Who was the study conducted by? Who funded the study?.

Well according my Journal of Complete Bullshit Facts: "Male Slashdot readers have bigger cocks than readers of Linux Today and Eweek.".

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another technique. Make yourself out to be the victim.

I once tried to ask my father about the history of polygamy, the endowment cerimony, and a few other things that have been glossed over by the church.

He immediately said "why do these people attack the church? Is it such a bad organization that people feel the need to attack it? What have we ever done to them?"

Seriously. That was the last time I ever tried to discuss controversial church history with him, as it was obvious he would view anything remotely negative as a direct assault on the church and himself personally.

How the hell do you argue with that?

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is a pedantic discussion let me rephrase:

Excuse me; I didn't know that that's what you meant by "youngest."

"The youngest age of consent at the time may be argued at 10-13. A more reasonable interpretation would put this at 12-14"

More reasonable? Let me put it in a broader Western view. The age of consent in most European countries was 12--all the way up to 1920 (75 years later). Not open to interpretation.

The first is very young to be married, the latter criminal sexual assault / statuatory rape.

It wasn't statutory anything, because there was no statute against it. If there were, they couldn't have married.

Please dont reply with "things were different then". Sexual abuse has never been acceptable in any society

This is a circular argument. You say it doesn't matter that "things were different then" because sexual abuse isn't acceptable. But you also imply that it is sexual abuse because it doesn't matter that "things were different then," which is what I dispute.

you never answered my question; doesn't this bother you at all to rationalize / defend this kind of exploitation / rape?

That's because I assumed it was rhetorical. Just as if I had said to you: "Doesn't it bother you that you are defending an incorrect position?" It doesn't lead to interesting discussion, only flaming.

If you want to continue this discussion, I suggest you respond to what follows, so it doesn't turn into a nit-picking sprawl; I think the basic points are contained below:

I think your remaining argument is that regardless of laws of the time, the marriages below a certain age constituted exploitation.

It was culturally acceptable for young (even teenaged) women to marry older men (even in their forties) in the 19th century. It was widely considered beneficial for all parties. These weren't fringe views of pedophilia advocates. Furthermore, a fifteen-year-old girl of that time was more socially and emotionally ready for marriage than a fifteen-year-old girl of our time, due to the differences in the respective societies.

You might disagree with the views of the culture at the time, but you cannot place the faults you perceive in it squarely on the shoulders of Joseph Smith.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this was happening during the Victorian time period. Attitudes on sex were much more conservative.

This is easy; you're wrong. That is, you're right about attitudes on sex being conservative--but older men marrying young (even teenaged) women was a conservative practice of the time.

It's crazy what blind faith people put into rants against religion.

Re:Utah ?

[KnarfO]

"You are probably referring to the Book of Mormon, which is also static"

Heh, sorry, but at first glance I thought you said "satanic"!

My bad :-)

Re:Utah ?

[PureFiction]

Nice spin, captain.

I think your remaining argument is that regardless of laws of the time, the marriages below a certain age constituted exploitation.

Not exploitation, RAPE. Such a dirty word. A 35+ year old man coercing a 14 year old girl into sex is RAPE. Can we agree on that? If not, good day to you sir, and please stay away from children.

You are correct that in some instances there was no explicit statute that delineated ages and penalties, etc.

But that's not the point. This is about sexual abuse and rape of a child, which, again, a 35+ man manipulating a 14yr old girl falls squarely in this category.

But you defend this practice.

It was widely considered beneficial for all parties.

Care to back that up? If I was a paedophile and "all parties" was me, myself and I, then sure. Can you really tell me, straight faced that Joseph Smith threatening a 14 year old girl with loss of eternal salvation if she did not marry and have sex with him is in any way defensible?

Can you tell me that? As a follower of Christ, you see nothing wrong with a 35+ year old man coercing a 14 year old girl into sex: raping her.

Just say it directly (not via this misleading wording about social norms, circumstance, etc).

Furthermore, a fifteen-year-old girl of that time was more socially and emotionally ready for marriage than a fifteen-year-old girl of our time

Does that matter? She was still WAY TOO YOUNG. Quit changing the subject.

It was culturally acceptable for young (even teenaged) women to marry older men (even in their forties) in the 19th century.

Show me the references which state that it was "culterally acceptable" for 40 year old men in the US to marry 14 year old girls. Show me!

You might disagree with the views of the culture at the time, but you cannot place the faults you perceive in it squarely on the shoulders of Joseph Smith.

I put them squarely on the shoulders of any rapist / child abuser who uses a position of power, including significant age difference and religious coercion to perpetrate these crimes.

There are a number of these guys locked up in prison right now, and I lay blame at them too.

This is discusting behavior, and I can't believe you can rationalize it in any sense.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

child molesting and rape is ok?

Where the hell did that come from? If you are referring to polygamy ... try reading the Old Testament and get a clue.

The LDS church will advise not to read questionable material ...R rated movies for example. Everyone is free to choose whether or not they follow the counsel that is given. Its not some kind of dictatorship!

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Utah!=Mormons. That being said from someone who is born and raised here and diffently NOT MORMON. Besides, Weber state is a STATE school, not a 'mormom' school.

Damn. Don't tell anyone your from boston they may think you like to play with little boys since every one from Boston is Roman Catholic!!!

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is easy; you're wrong. That is, you're right about attitudes on sex being conservative--but older men marrying young (even teenaged) women was a conservative practice of the time.

It's crazy what blind faith people put into rants against religion.

I have to commend you. It takes balls to try to defend the polygamous relationships of Joseph Smith. Most apologists won't even touch the subject. I think when you read over this tread you'll see why. It a point that can't be defended. Airing it in plublic does termendous damage.

Take the tact of your learders and leave this one to "No comment". No matter what you say you still look crazy to those that are not of your faith.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, a fifteen-year-old girl of that time was more socially and emotionally ready for marriage than a fifteen-year-old girl of our time

Studies show that girls are maturing at an earlier age: Time Article

This means that a 14-15 year old girl of this era was less sexually developed than the girs of today. That's just sick and wrong. You're saying that since they were more mature socially and emotionally. As a father, your rationale makes me ill.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell did that come from? If you are referring to polygamy ... try reading the Old Testament and get a clue.

I was referring to a certain 35+ year old man telling these young girls, some as young as 14 - thats an 8th grader that if they did not have sex with him and wed, they and their families would be denied salvation into the kingdom of the lord.

This is child molesting and rape. It is NOT ok!

That man is Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon / LDS religion.

Are you saying the bible makes this OK? What is your point about the old testament? It has nothing to do with a malicious child molester / rapist preying on innocent and impressionable young girls.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

o matter what you say you still look crazy to those that are not of your faith.

Another one who sees nothing wrong with a 35+ year old man coercing young girls into sex. Do you really process this information? Can you picture your bishop taking an 8th grader out of sunday school, threatening her with loss of salvation if she tells anyone or resists, and then raping her?

And you are OK with this? Somehow the lord condones this?

Jesus Christ himself would say: "Good job joseph"?

Re:Utah ?

[LWATCDR]

So do you wear swastika or just a sheet? Since you choose to be a bigot and condem over ten million people for there faith I guess it is okay to make fun of you :)

Re:Utah ?

[Schaffner]

What about the recent change in the Book of Mormon where a reference to "white" was changed to "pure"? That was just in the last couple of years.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was just in the last couple of years.

That was done around 1980, not quite a couple of years ago IIRC. There were a few other minor edits done at that time (2 or 3?) but the vast majority of extensive grammatical corrections occurred early on.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exploitation, RAPE.

I don't want to argue about what word to use. You first used the word exploitation. I used exploitation instead of rape to distinguish between something wrong and something illegal and wrong. The real point: I say no exploitation/RAPE was committed. You say it was. Putting it in bold isn't going to elucidate anything. I would rather continue with less rhetoric.

Does that matter? She was still WAY TOO YOUNG. Quit changing the subject.

I say: Such-and-such is why she was not too young. You say: Does that matter? She was still too young. Then you say I'm changing the subject.

Show me the references which state that it was "culterally acceptable" for 40 year old men in the US to marry 14 year old girls. Show me!

Okay, this is tedious, and I'm beginning to doubt that you care to learn anything on this subject, but I'll do it. My method: search Google for "19th century marriages". First result I found of marriage records in the time in question: here. Of course, there are a variety of ages. Very common are marriages of men in their twenties marrying teenaged girls. Here are some age disparities you might find to be comparable to the one you sheesh'ed in the original post:

21 June 1852, Port Huron
William Sanderson, 31, Port Huron
Catherine Lane, 15, Port Huron
William Weaind & Abigail Richmond, both of Port Huron; William Taylor, Minister

17 May 1840, Algonac
Charles L. Poole, 36, Clay, Boot Shoemaker
Mariene Chortie, 16, Clay, Seamstress, P: Charles Chartier & Elizabeth Meny
Flora Stafford & Betsey Ainsworth; John K. Smith, JP

24 June 1841, Clyde
Abraham Sprague, 28, Port Huron
Nancy Osmer, 14, Port Huron
George W. Palmer & Mary Palmer, both of Port Huron; James I. Vincent, JP

How about Effi Briest? Set in the late 19th century, it's a novel about a teenaged girl who marries a man who is about forty years old. That's not Effi's problem, though, it's that her husband works too much and she doesn't have any friends in the town where they move to. People call the novel "typical of 19th century Victorian morality" and the marriage "a not untypical 19th century marriage."

There. If the first links I find on Google aren't good enough, then I say it's your turn to look it up in a source that pleases you. But don't worry; I don't expect to admit that you're wrong. In fact, chances are so slim, it won't be worth checking back here. Have a nice life, though.

Well, before I go, I should say that I found a couple of non-related points you made amusing, and since you seem to like me to comment on your irrelevancies, I would be remiss to fail to oblige. First, on changing subjects. My first post merely pointed out that in the 19th century it wouldn't have been strange for a young girl to marry an older man. As it (all too slowly) seemed to dawn on you that you were absolutely wrong, instead of taking it like a man, you ignored my point, and started attacking me (implying that I condoned rape (and that if I disagreed with you I wanted to rape your children?)) and Joseph Smith (with the whole coercion issue, about which I am ignorant, and am not particularly interested in), as if it were our fault that you had made a fool of yourself. Second, you seem to have assumed that I am a Christian, and, probably, a Mormon. Funny that you should rationalize that the only way that someone could possibly tell you that you were wrong would be if he adhered to a different ideology.

Thanks for all of the EMPHASIS ,

AC

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The change from "white" to "pure" was first done in the Nauvoo edition of the Book of Mormon in the 1843. Later edition used the Manchester England edition of the 1850's which did not have that change. In the 1981 edition the wording was change to refelct the 1843 edition whcih was the last edition Joseph Smith ever worked on, he was killed in 1844.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to argue about what word to use. You first used the word exploitation. I used exploitation instead of rape to distinguish between something wrong and something illegal and wrong. The real point: I say no exploitation/RAPE was committed. You say it was.

Ok, bad wording on my part. How about this as a clarification:

Exploitation would be a very older man marrying a very young woman (14 years old?). These days statuatory rape laws make this illegal.

Rape would be coercing the young woman into sex via some threat: the loss of salvation for example. In a society where young marriages are accepted, the use of this kind of threat makes it rape.

Very common are marriages of men in their twenties marrying teenaged girls.

I would say the vast majority of marriages to young women in the age we are talking about are young men in their 20's. There are extremely few of the kind you mentioned above.

Thus I repeat: show me the references which state that it was "culterally acceptable" for 40 year old men in the US to marry 14 year old girls.

There are tens of thousands of polygamists in the US, but this does not make it culterally acceptable.

Likewise, there are a few instances of old men + young women in the age ranges we are talking about, but this does nothing to argue the point it is socially acceptable.

I would go so far as to state that these marriages you posted were highly frowned upon by their peers.

My first post merely pointed out that in the 19th century it wouldn't have been strange for a young girl to marry an older man.

Im talking about 20+ years older man marrying a very young woman - 14-15.

As it (all too slowly) seemed to dawn on you that you were absolutely wrong, instead of taking it like a man, you ignored my point, and started attacking me

I think you are confusing anonymous cowards with each other. Maybe you are talking about the other one who said as a father you disgust him. Thats not me, the "other" anonymous coward :-)

As it (all too slowly) seemed to dawn on you that you were absolutely wrong, instead of taking it like a man, you ignored my point, and started attacking me

Perhaps this is where we are starting to talk past each other... Joseph smith used threats and abuse of his position of respect and religious importance to rape these young women.

The willfully and hapily married 16 yr old to her 30 yr old husband would probably fall under the exploitation umbrella, as its not rape.

Second, you seem to have assumed that I am a Christian, and, probably, a Mormon. Funny that you should rationalize that the only way that someone could possibly tell you that you were wrong would be if he adhered to a different ideology.

The only way I could see someone justifying the acts of Joseph Smith against these young girls would be if they followed the religion. This isnt about calling me wrong, this is about appologists for this rapist pissing me off.

Re:Utah ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, you seem to have assumed that I am a Christian, and, probably, a Mormon. Funny that you should rationalize that the only way that someone could possibly tell you that you were wrong would be if he adhered to a different ideology.

Second Coward here, Maybe 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th. I really wish you could have an out of body experience because nobody would defend the acts of Joseph Smith unless he or she was a mormon. Most members of the church refuse to admit that it actually happened. If it were a matter of common knowledge, I think you'd have far fewer members.

You may be right that the sexual exploitation of young women in the 19th century was common. When I served my mission in Brazil, I noticed that it was also common there. I'm sure in the 3rd world it is common. Exploitation of women and children may be common in a large part of the world. But don't you hold your prophet to a higher standard?

You would think that a man that walks and talks with Jesus Christ would have the ability to recognize the exploitation of little girls and refrain from it. He'd see it as an evil like we see it today.

You're attempt to make this look common place is very dishonest. It was far from common place for a married man in the Victorian era to take a teenage girl in secret. It was not common place for a

What I suggest is that you check with you're closest non-mormon friend. Share with him the information about Joseph Smith's young wifes. See how apt he is to defend this behavior. See how appauled he is that you don't see a problem with it because it happenned in a different era. Your myopic view of these issues paints you as what you are.

With Distances this great...

[Azadre]

Will it be possible that wireless internet will become the default in the next five years over traditional phone/cable? With distances this far, would it be too hard to set it up in rural areas and provide low cost broadband?

Re:With Distances this great...

[Beatbyte]

Interesting? You didn't even read the article. Its directional microwave.

Impossible to setup in rural areas. You would have to have a directional antenna for each user. Any more than 10 users and thats going to be a cluster-f$%@ of a guyed tower.

Re:With Distances this great...

[tzanger]

Not with 370ms ping times...

Re:With Distances this great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the article says unaplified. I don't know about you, but I consider hi-gain antennas to be aplification. Of course, I know the title was BS right away, but I can forgive anyone from for being confuse by it. The article had not details, other than the fact it was sponsered by and antenna company.

Re:With Distances this great...

[CaptBubba]

Not if my WISP is any indication of the direction wireless is headed.

Current problems I have encountered:
Frequent dropped connections, hourly most of the time, will come back after a min or so
Not able to scale well. As I said a few months ago, wired networks merely slowed down when the viruses hit in Sept, the wireless network simply turned off for about a month until it was fixed
Packetloss, very bad at times
Then there's also the whole security issue

That's not including the company-specific problems I have had (aformentioned month-long blackout, nonexistant after-buisness-hours support, etc). Not to mention that I don't have a real IP address, just 10.0.x.x, useless for a lot of stuff. I suppose this makes sense when you have a wildly fluctuating mass of people on your service, but it is still a pain. All this may just be one bad experience, but it has led to a distrust of the idea of 802.11a/b/g wireless deployed on a large scale

Some of the trouble likely stems from the open frequency band 802.11b uses. I can only guess the packetloss spikes are from somebody else in the complex using the microwave or something. Of course, you can do what my WISP did and get the apartment complex/housing area to ban all private APs ($300 per day of operation fine, ouch!), but that still does nothing about 2.4GHz wireless phones, cheap microwaves, and other devices that could interfere. Not to mention: what happens if it rains? I doubt a long distance microwave link would take too kindly to a lot of moisture in the atmosphere.

On a side note, since I will obviously be dropping this ISP in favor of DSL or cable as soon as my contract comes up, am I pretty much SOL in terms of their wireless AP ban? I mean, running multiple drops of cat-5e to every room is doable, but I'd like to avoid it if possible. I get the feeling that this is a grey area where they can pretty much say whatever they want.

Re:With Distances this great...

[tonyr60]

I would not get too optimistic about the opportunties that this accomplishment appears to offer rural communities. I am not familiar with the area, but it looks like most of the link is over water and I am sure that it is line of sight. I suspect any sort of obstruction, rain, maybe fog, dust etc. would stuff it up. In addition any sort of interference from portable phones, microwaves etc. etc. would also affect it.

Reliable rural connection would need more than 802.11b power for anything close to that range.

Re:With Distances this great...

[DarkSarin]

I don't know as much as I should, but since my brother is in the business, I feel I need to comment. Most of your Microwave links are fairly hardened against weather. Yeah, it cuts down range, but you would build two towers at the extreme end of the range.

The upshot of this is that you might consider towers every 40 mi, which is still respectable, but then it leaves you with the rather serious problem of how to connect this to the people on the ground. It sounds to me like a way to shoot data across a large distance, and then distribute. The sad part about this is that they are using 802.11b. The slow speeds make it less than ideal for large numbers of users.

Instead, why not use one of the more powerful antennas available from Proxim (the Tsunami does like 430 Mbps (full duplex) at 5 miles), and if you need greater range, there are antennas that can handle that (although they are slower)), or a similar company. Many of their antennas are license exempt, but still operate outside th 2.4GHz band (5.8GHz, typically). The only one that is licensed operates at 23 GHz (wow!).

At one point I was looking into starting a WISP, but decided that the rollout was a little too high initially. Instead I went back to school.

Re:With Distances this great...

[spectre_240sx]

Actually, I'm making this post currently from a directional microwave connection in a rural area, so there goes that arguement. :)

Re:With Distances this great...

[timeOday]

What's the problem with having an antenna for each user, as opposed to a mile or two of cabling or fiber?

Re:With Distances this great...

[adamruck]

how far away is your house from the street, god damn

Re:With Distances this great...

[CaptBubba]

I just haven't had a good experience with the use of wireless as a last mile solution. I think that these long distance links are a great idea, especially if they are resistant to weather like you say, but wireless shouldn't be used at the ends of them to distribute the data.

I find the different antennta choices interesting. Would there be anything in the way of using a high gain antenna that works with 802.11b for 802.11g? Would the higher data rate cause trouble?

(note, I wrote a 300 word reply, talking about my WISP's infrastructure and potential trouble with it, when i realised that it was all rambling. I saved it in case anyone is genuinely curious as to how they run their network and what troubles they have had. Just say if you'd like to see it)

Re:With Distances this great...

[drinkypoo]

You need a wireless interface for each user, but you can bring in multiple connections on one piece of fiber. You also need a bigass antenna for each user for whom you are trying to get significant range. Other than that, nothing.

However you are better off with a series of stations, maybe mesh-networked, maybe not, with both directional and omnidirectional antennas. The directionals will point either at home base or other stations, and the omnis will handle serving individual users.

Then, the users can have directionals pointed at the omnis. Perhaps you'll only be able to get a five mile range (on average) with a primestar dish on one end and an omni on the other, but you'll be able to get a lot of users connected to one station that way.

Re:With Distances this great...

[DarkSarin]

Yeah I agree that wireless is a poor choice for end distribution, which is one of the reasons I didn't go into the business. Personally I see a great future for apartment builders who want to incorporate internet access into the infrastructure, and have that as a feature of the apartment (FREE! Internet access when you rent from Bob's Apartments! Limited space available! Hurry! Act Now! If you wait, you'll miss this offer!) and so on.

I would love to see high speed wireless connects to the apartments, followed by hard gigabit wiring withing the complex. Of course, security would be an issue (as in LOTS of wiring--can't let people on the network see the computers near them, or you would have serious problems with hackers).

So, while I would love to build this and operate it (and get the money off it), the start up costs are tremendous. The upshot is that if you could convince an existing complex to allow you to wire the apartments, and offered 5Mbs connections to the residents for, say $40 a month, you would quickly fill the apartments with geeks and nerds of the most dire sorts. In a complex with 300 people (assuming 100% fill) that means you make $12,000 a month for one complex. Assuming typical rollout costs, you won't make your money back for several months (which isn't bad--some companies don't expect black for several years). Operating costs would further slow this down. Realistically, you could expect 18-24 months before profit is realized (and that is being optimistic, which is a big no-no in startups).

If anyone knows more about this, I'm still curious. Unfortunately, I am currently in grad school studying industrial psychology (see siop.org for a description), and have quite a bit of time left.

Re:With Distances this great...

[BuckaBooBob]

Think of the bandwidth required to feed the the population in that area.. if you think 11mbit will be enough then you are sadly mistaken...

It would have to be only available to sparcely populated areas... and then even so.. at extreme range throughput would be absolutly minimal... there would be alot of retransmission ect that would tie up bandwidth ect..

Re:With Distances this great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Communise it. One huge ass antenna then fiber from there to the home.

Re:With Distances this great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods on crack again!

There are roughly a BILLION reasons why wireless wont replace wired anytime soon in any application. The article is all about a directional feed in any case - i.e. someone plants a new tree / house between you and your rural ISP and you lose connectivity.

I know its a tradition to never RTFA on /. but sheesh!

Re:With Distances this great...

[marvinglenn]

Of course, you can do what my WISP did and get the apartment complex/housing area to ban all private APs ($300 per day of operation fine, ouch!)

I'm curious as to how they could get away with such a ban. Are you contractually bound by a covenant? If not, they're a non-government agency trying to take over the FCC's jurisdiction.

Re:With Distances this great...

[evilandi]

drinkypoo: You need a wireless interface for each user

Why? Why not one interface with multiple antennas? (I'm new to wi-fi and need to learn; I did used to design antennas for pirate radio stations though)

Re:With Distances this great...

[Beatbyte]

OK, now take your house, and multiply that times 250. What do you think the tower would look like with 250 directional microwave dishes on it?

Re:With Distances this great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh... Didn't the FCC rule that a municipality/home owners assoc/landlord can not prevent/limit the reception/transmission of EM communications. This was primarily done to overrule convenants restricting the placement of DSS type dishes but would apply to wireless networking as well. So your $300 fine for setting up an AP is illegal.

Re:With Distances this great...

[drinkypoo]

That's an excellent question. I could speculate wildly but I have no scientific answer. I probably should have prefixed that statement with "as far as I can tell." I've never heard of multiple high-gain antennas being used on a single interface, but that doesn't mean no one is doing it. It may be that if the hardware is designed for it, that this is entirely feasible.

Re:With Distances this great...

[elixx]

I was under the impression that they were going to use different channels for each user (or having users broken down into small groups on different channels) to allow more bandwidth for each individual station.
I wonder if they could multiplex the wireless signals to support more users... 802.11 meets xDMA. Hehe.

Re:With Distances this great...

[RealProgrammer]

Interesting? You didn't even read the article. Its directional microwave.

Do try to be more charitable.

Rural areas are generally clusters of people, with each cluster distant from others. There are lots and lots of small towns of 100 people or less. In Illinois they're centered around grain elevators, with typically a little grocery store, and maybe a bar, maybe a church. The people drive 10-20 miles to the nearest Wal-Mart to do their serious shopping. They aren't served by cable TV and the quality of the telephone physical plant is generally awful.

Directional microwave or other signals might be more effective than anything else in reaching these towns. The enterprising ISP just puts a dish at a convenient spot, say on top of the grain elevator, and arranges for cooperative wi-fi to reach the rest of town. In fact, the towns themselves might be relay points in a double-ring network.

Re:With Distances this great...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should get into ham radio or something (not just wi-fi) if you are interested in this stuff.

Don't you want full transmitter power for each antenna, instead of dividing it between multiple antennas? Might as well go with a single omnidirectional, and have each of your users see your signal with a dish. If you go with one xciever / user then each user gets their wireless link all to himself.

Re:With Distances this great...

[spectre_240sx]

This should give you a decent idea of how I'm connecting. There's no need for 250 microwave dishes.

Re:With Distances this great...

[MadHakish]

Having worked for a wireless ISP using proprietary hardware encryption and DSSS, NON 802.11a/b/g/foo but still within the same frequency ranges maybe I can shed some light on the logistics of this sort of operation.

First you have a freznel zone to deal with in any line-of-sight connection. This is presuming you can maintain line-of-sight - through hilly/mountainous areas, valleys, or any other severe terrain you can forget about broadcast wireless. At least in that frequency range.

Ideally you can get a directional -> omni connection out to 5 miles or so un-amplified and maintain good speed. (About 2Mbit) This is during ideal conditions only. Once you add amplification you better get on the horn to the FCC, because you can bet your ass they'll want to talk to you. Especially if you are making money at it. (Here in the US anyways.)

Next you have to think about how your are going to get bandwidth to the locations which you want to serve, in a mesh, say of 5 omni's, you could probably serve 20-40 clients per omni at speeds close to ISDN. Keep in mind this is not a switched technology - a 54Mbit link is "shared" between users, if you can even get 54Mbit to the base.

Antenna and transceiver packages have a cost factor that scares many users off unless it's a dedicated connection to a high-speed link.

Here in Minneapolis there is an omni or twenty on the top of the IDS tower (The tallest building in Minneapolis, MN) - for the past few years a number of companies have purchased and re-sold these antennae and the associated services they are providing to local business and all have had the same problems. Packet loss, downtime, distance limitations, line-of-site issues.

Just because you can see it doesn't mean it will work perfectly - remember the freznel zone? Think of a football (the NFL type football, not soccer football.) between both antennae, anything that interferes with that "zone" affects greatly the speed and link quality. Here in MN, my Wireless PtP would go down in heavy snow. (Not that we've had what you could call heavy snow for a couple of years.. screw you east coast... ;-)

All of this is based on the assumption you don't have 2000 other devices in the same frequency range throwing all sorts of interference, or "noise" into your link keeping your SnR pretty low.

Wireless over distance is *truly* only useful in the PtP sense, it's just to difficult and unreliable for full-time consumer access. Wireless will never be that last-mile solution everyone wants - it's doomed to long-distance PtP in select areas, and T-Mobile hot-spots / public AP's.

Now to have the type of signal penetration a cell-tower or better - TV - AND to be able to deliver speeds of current WiFi would be a vast improvement, but currently even the US military realizes broadcast WiFi != good WiFi, but PtP WiFi == Great way to cover distance without the costs of laying cable.

Did you know backup communications for Camp David are PtP wireless links?

Same with large telco's, cable companies, etc. Anyone Sascatchewan residents out there? Wonder what those large towers with "cone" shaped antennae on top are?

Basically PtP is great for covering long, relatively flat (terrain wise) distances without a lot of installation cost.

WiFi broadcast style for the masses will never take off without the penetration of say cell/TV broadcast frequencies, even then I would be wary if connection stability is a requirement.

I have obviously left a lot of issues, like polarity and such, out of this post - that might get a bit wordy. I'd be interested in finding out what others who do work / have worked in this field think..

Internet? In Utah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless guru Rob Flickenger details the known records for Wi-Fi link distances on his latest blog.

In other news, it was determined that Rob Flickenger's blog is the only internet content generated in Utah (unless you count the "Tech Support Hell" stories from all the call centers in Ogden).

--
Rate Naked People at FuckMeter (Not work-safe [unless your boss likes porn])

Re:Internet? In Utah?

[dbkluck]

>>In other news, it was determined that Rob Flickenger's blog is the only internet content generated in Utah umm... haven't you seen those ubiquitous red-"c"-on-globe icons on the main page? i'd say more internet content is generated in Utah than any other state in the union

Re:Internet? In Utah?

[dwillden]

Actually it's just one call center in particular, the AOHELL call center. And yes, I did my time there.

So,

[beeudoublez]

Is it just me or does the 'blog' hyperlink to oreillynet.com not work?

Re:So,

[cold_sake]

Just you. Here it is again.

Re:So,

[beeudoublez]

Heh, thanks. Must be something on my end as it still doesn't work. Now I'm just embarassed.

Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[MikeDawg]

Seems amazing especially because of the close by mountain range.

Now can someone explain to me why I have such difficulty connecting to their wireless network while I'm on campus?

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[iamplupp]

easy. you need the wifi speed spray!>

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[DarkSarin]

yeah, but if you go the OTHER direction, there is essentially NOTHING to see. at all. West of the mountains next to SLC, there is nothing but dry barren dirt (well, okay a big salty lake, but hey).

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now can someone explain to me why I have such difficulty connecting to their wireless network while I'm on campus?

Because they pumped up the 802.11 transmitter to 1000 jigawatts in order to reach a base station 82 miles away. Totally kills all the local wifi fun...

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[swtaarrs]

Because you don't have a finely tuned antenna pointed directly at their finely tuned antenna. Without amplifying the signal, all they can do is fiddle with the antenna, so that's what they did.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[helix400]

Heh, in the Weber State computer science building, you can't even get a wireless connection if you're not on the same floor as the hub. And the building is only two freaking floors, and only has about 10 classrooms!

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[MikeDawg]

Heh, in the Weber State computer science building, you can't even get a wireless connection if you're not on the same floor as the hub. And the building is only two freaking floors, and only has about 10 classrooms!

And people think I'm trolling when I say that the campus wide wireless network sucks. . .

I was there last year when Ken finally decided to upgrade the TBE (technical and business education) building classrooms from their 10 mbit hubs, to 10/100 switches. Thank god, too bad it brought the building down for several days, not necessarily a seamless upgrade.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[dwillden]

Not really when you take the Great Salt lake into account. It's 150 miles long north to south so the distances reached is quite easy to achive. Even more so when they climb mountains.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of all the cinderblock in the buildings. Remember Ghz range is interupted by leaves on trees and rain.
Plus the building may only be partially covered or not covered. As some are (Browning Center for example) because its up to the department to fork over the money.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[dwillden]

Now can someone explain to me why I have such difficulty connecting to their wireless network while I'm on campus?

Umm probably because there isn't one. Oh there are a few access points that individual prof's have set up but nothing Campus wide or even in the Student Union building.

They intend to fix that deficency right after they arrange for ample parking(16,000+ students, only on campus housing for a couple hundred, and 7000 parking spaces.)

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is not kidding! They have a hard time just keeping the windows machines free of virus..

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[helix400]

Try the CS lab in general. They tried to update it this summer. It's never worked right since. Sometimes during the first month, there was no internet access, no printers, and a login took 5 minutes. Go computer science dept. Can't even get the friggin lab to work.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

believe me i know! i work tech support there and we had to resort as far as shutting down ANY port (wall) that was broadcasting anything that looked like a virus. which meant that if you used file/print sharing we shut you off... LOL. :-D

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[uvsc_wolverine]

That's because you're going to Weber State. Transfer to Utah Valley State College and you'll never complain about your wireless connection again (available bandwidth on the other hand...).

I'm connected to their campus-wide wireless LAN and it seems that the only place I can't get a connection is the cafeteria - maybe it's to keep people from dripping gravy onto their keyboards.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[dwillden]

Amen, Of course I've always had the opinion that maybe they should let us Comp Sci Students do a little work on the network there, particularly the Systems Integration emphasis people.

Sad to say but I think it's gotten to the point that you can get better instruction on running a network from the IS&T dept now. I really regret not choosing that major instead. But at the time it was introduced (about five years ago) the entry exam asked for knowledge of Word Perfect 5.1, I figured I was a bit more advanced than that and chose to stay with comp sci.

So now I've got to go to the IS&T dept if I want to learn about cisco routers.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

And after I transfer to UVSC, I can use that wireless connection in my car as it takes me an hour to drive the last mile to the school.

Re:Why does my wireless account at Weber suck?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had any clue whatsoever, Weber has a great wireless network where it has been implemented. Considering the campus is damn old and most of the building are concrete, the wireless network that is current there is pretty neat. I have heard rumors that soon the entire campus will have wireless access. And whichever dumbshit said the access points that are installed currently where put in by professors you are STUPID, check you facs before speak. Most of the access points have been put in by the individual departments that can afford them!

Also if you have been to the new davis campus - there are so many dam wireless access points you can fry a hot dog.

Inside sources...

[TrevorB]

A new distance record for an un-amplified Wi-Fi link, set by the students of Utah's Weber State University. 82 miles was accomplished with 802.11b.

Sources within Utah's Weber State University state that this amazing feat was accomplished with the aid of an 82 mile long antenna, laid horizontally along the ground toward the Wi-Fi node.

(Yes, dammit, I didn't read the article...)

82 miles is....

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

82 miles = 131.966208 kilometers (Thanks google)

That's one large hot spot

[Stray7Xi]

and the university bandwidth to back it..

No mention on how (if?) it's secured?

That's far...

[Anonymous Coward]

When it's a long distance phone call to talk to someone at the other node!

Re:That's far...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a long distance call to my neighbors across the street...

Re:That's far...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a long distance call to my neighbors across the street...

Really? What city do you live?

yeah. here's how they did it.

[interstellar_donkey]

They set up one wireless access point with the SSID set to the default 'Linksys'.

And many, many miles away they turned on their windows machine, and voila! There it was, the WAP with the SSID 'Linksys', wide open just as they had left it!

huh?

[mOoZik]

The link says 72 miles. The slashdot posting says 82. 10 miles is a pretty large error.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, this is slashdot; anything within an order of magnitude is close enough.

Re:huh?

[Stray7Xi]

The blog says 72 but the actual site says 82..

WSU Students Break Wi-Fi - National Record 82 miles @ 2.4 GHz.

Two-way DSSS communication via 2.4 GHz band at a distance of 82 mi.

Re:huh?

[Russ Steffen]

The slashdot posting converted the distance to metric miles.

Re:huh?

[use_compress]

This proves the poster was wardriving in the area.

Re:huh?

[frazzydee]

check the blog- it says that the site originally said 72 miles, but now it says 82. Hope this clears things up. Maybe there was a mistake on the original .edu website which they corrected later?

Re:huh?

[kayen_telva]

nothing insightful about this post.
they tried three distances 30, 70, 80
they all worked.
I know. I know, noone wants to actually RTFA or actually visit the links.

Re:huh?

[dwillden]

Well being a CS student at Weber, I had no knowledge of this except for the local newspaper.

However the discrepancy in the distances is due to the time frame. The newspaper The Standard Examiner www.standard.net reported that they reached the 72 mile distance last week. And that they would attempt a longer distance over the weekend. They were going to try for 90 miles but I guess they settled for 82.

Re:huh?

[satterth]

well when i calulate the distance between the Lat/Long's they give for their 80mile attempt

41 37.798'/111 22.478'
40 29.381'/111 52.523'

its over 80 miles indeed.

Well DUH!

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO owns all IP and SCO is in UTAH!

fo shizzle

Re:Well DUH!

[MikeDawg]

So is UniSys so until recently WSU wouldn't have been able to create a .gif image of their work (just don't transfer the images outside of the U.S. where the patent still stands for several more months)

Re:Well DUH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello AC you are a poof

In my area

[Unixfreak31]

In my area of the world we have something simliar to this. The main thing holding people back is cost of equipment. This is still about 400 dollars plus 39.95 a month with something like 512k down 128k up. We use this at work and it seems to work pretty good. http://www.planetc.com/

Scary

[BassAkwards]

Jeez, with that kind of range wardrivers no longer need to back the Chevy Tahoe out of the garage.

What was the SSID?

[Phrogz]

Just out of curiosity, they didn't happen to link to an SSID named 'linksys', and think it was the right network, did they? :)

I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

The 802.11b MAC layer is fairly sensitive to timing latency. (I go into more detail on this article on timing in long 802.11 links)

Did they use the old ad-hoc demo peer to peer mode, which has no ACK's and performs much better over longer links?

Cisco cards are also well known for their quality; perhaps the cisco MAC can adapt to high latency long shots while also working well in infrastructure mode.

Does anyone have more details on exactly how tenuous this link was, and how they pulled it (card settings, cables, antennas?)

As a side note, myself and some others have been wondering how we might go about discerning the exact timing characteristics of different 802.11 MAC implementations using non-exotic hardware (like regular cards in monitor mode).

When you need to measure microseconds (or fractions of them) it gets tricky...

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

Arg, the information link looked like the college site nav bar...

Some observations:

1) It's an illegally amplified system. No one cares about the FCC anyway, but it would be illegal for you to sell or operate this kind of link.

2) The extremely long ping times seems to imply that they were using a regular IBSS connection with the ACK's likely timing out frequently.

The delay's at the IP level are caused by retransmission at layer 2 for links like this, indicating that the link was probably spotty and in need of some timing tweaks.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[mindstrm]

how do you determine it was illegally amplified?

Respectfully.. did you (or they) do the math and show that it violated FCC regulations, or are you just assuming that because there is an amplifier, it's illegal (which would be wrong)

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

Arg, I hate doing the EIRP limit math! *grin*

Here is the FCC law (which no one cares about, but I brought it up)

1. The limint for directional links is 4W EIRP at 6dBi. That means 1W dBm output (from radio), plus antenna gain. The 6dBi bit is important. The higher gain your antenna, the more you have to reduce output power.

2. For every 3dBi over 6dBi in antenna gain, you need to reduce output power by 1dBm. This means that your effective signal output is higher, while the transmit power from the radio is lower than 1W.

So, here is a handy table of legal radio + antenna pairs starting with the most powerful radio combination first:

1.0 W radio + 6dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
500 mW radio + 9dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
250 mW radio + 12dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
125 mW radio + 15dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
62 mW radio + 18dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
31 mW radio + 21dBi antenna == 4W EIRP

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

I need to quit posting sans-caffeine. The above are for multipoint. For directional the table is as follows:

1.0 W radio + 6dBi antenna == 4W EIRP
500 mW radio + 15dBi antenna == 16W EIRP
250 mW radio + 24dBi antenna == 63W EIRP

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[mindstrm]

Cool.. I didn't think there were differnet specs for multipoint though... how you set up the network, or the particulars of the air protocol used aren't supposed to matter... you could just be broadcasting data over DSSS and that's that...

or maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean by multipoint.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[mindstrm]

Okay so....

Give that's not hard at all.. I find it funny the students are unaware if they are within FCC regs.. I would think especially a univeristy teaching stuff liket his would have a proper site license for experimenting, and would also be teaching the rules. It's not hard.. highschool math.

They used a 27dBi gain parabolic... so that's 21dBi over 6dBi, so they should have reduced the input power by 7dBi..
Which should be, well, less than 500mW.
They siad they used a 500mW amp... so without even doing any more math, it looks like this setup would be illegal in the US.

I suppose if they were using the amp only to overcome antenna cable loss and a wimpy radio to begin with... it would be okay.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[A]

If you bother to check the actual page out, you will see that they had a liceneced ham at each end and as such fall under part 97 NOT part 15 where you are getting all your limits.

http://classes.weber.edu/wireless/Project%20Info rm ation.htm

And yes I know that they broke ham rules when the sent "music" in a tranmission, but that is a slap on the wrist at most, and there is no way that anyone at the fcc could prove that it was music and not some random text file with the wrong extention.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[mindstrm]

I am referring to the setup itself, and whether or not it should be considered a "wifi distance limit".. as it's not legal wifi.

I'm fully aware that with the proper licenses (such as ham) this can be set up and tested. That doesn't change the fact that joe average can't legally go out and set up the same thing, and especially not commercially.

I'm not at all saying "they broke the law".

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[A]

1) The other "record" that everyone is talking about from europe was using FHSS modulation and as such isn't wi-fi.

2) By your same logic any modified system isn't wi-fi certified as deamed by the industry group that sets the standard and owns the trademark to wi-fi. http://www.weca.net/

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. According to my reading of 15.247 it goes like this:

for point to point, if your antenna has x gain, you have to drop your input to y

x | y
-----
6 |30
9 |29
12|28
15|27
18|26
21|25
24|24
27|23
30| 22
33|21

The gain on that thing has to be at least 21, more like 24-27, limiting input power to 23-25dBm, or about 200-316mW. So (correct me if I'm wrong) wouldn't 1.5W be way high?

But (and I don't know much about this) if they're hams and going my part 97 rules, the limits are completely different aren't they?

Also, I was wondering about the ACK timgin stuff, good point about using ad-hoc.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

Any kind of encoding (from WEP to MP3) on the link is going to nullify the HAM angle. I hear this often (get a ham license!) but from non trusted sources who dont even know that you cant encrypt across ham bands.

Where have you seen the FCC OK the use of encoding/encryption for HAM bands if it 802.11b? I think even the frequency multiplexing might be a disqualifier ... [ off to scour for info ]

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[Anonymous Coward]

The timing was an issue on the shot. It made ftp a bit slow even on an ad hoc network. The ping times slowed to 2300 - 4300 ms when downloading and 300 - 500 ms normally (with some notable exceptions of 9-10 ms, during low interference periods).

The cables were not 'special' order from Cisco. One was 'home-made' and the other was commercially made by Cisco.

Ad-hoc network was used. Cisco drivers for the card (great for anyone who wants a good approximation of signal strength and quality- tuning was done with GPS and compasses).

Biggest issue for us was the reaction to the antenna from the Cisco card. The card would cut out periodically and cycle through data rates. The problems can be corrected by tuning the antenna to the greatest signal strength, then reinitializing the card or the computer.

Latency was not a huge problem at 82 miles, as I have seen wired networks with more latency. It seems to me that well-built networks are the biggest factor in controlling the latency. See ping times above.

The only tweaking that we had to do was on the MS XP OS to keep ping from timing out when dealing with interference.

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

Interesting results!

I would be curious to find out how much improved the system is if you did the following (you may need linux / bsd to do it):

1. Use the demo ad-hoc mode designed by Lucent prior to IBSS mode standardization. This has no ACK, and thus will suffer much less when the SIFS and even DIFS is exceeded.

2. Fix the cards at a specific rate. You could start at 1Mbps and work up, see what you max out at. If you have short pigtails going to the amps, going almost directly into the antennas, you should be able to use 5.5, maybe even 11 consistently.

3. The antenna problems sound similiar to things I have encountered on dual port cards with antenna selection gone awry. Can you confirm there is only one port, or if dual that the "master" or "primary" is the one being used?

It could also be the cisco car detecting significant and continued SIFS timeouts and trying antenna diversity as a workaround? Weird ...

One last thing that may be useful is fragmentation, but I suspect this wont make a lot of difference...

Re:I wonder what they tweaked

[PureFiction]

There isnt anything specific you need for multipoint, just that the antennas are usually radiating in a much wider path than the highly directional point to point.

For example, many WISP's use 90 degree sector antennas for point to multi-point and have around 9dBi to 12dBi of gain (sometimes as high as 15).

So for these systems you are allowed 4W EIRP max, regardless of antenna gain, and 1W dBm from the radio max, regardless of antenna gain.

So the highest radio output allowed would be a 1W amp on a 6dBi panel antenna.

If you go with a 15dBi sector, you would need to cut the radio output down significantly.

Home-made (rigged) Sat. Dish

[MikeDawg]

Do you think that they did use a large "fruit can" (8" long x 4" diameter) in this test? Or do you think they modified it from the original posting on how to make a 802.11b receiver from an old primestar satellite dish?

Re:Home-made (rigged) Sat. Dish

[MikeDawg]

No!!! In a bold move WSU students elected to use a used Tupperware dish as opposed to the more popular "fruit can". Maybe that is the secret to their success!!!

Once you pop, you can't stop...

[rohan_leader]

That must be one hell of a pringle can..

Re:Once you pop, you can't stop...

[pherris]

rohan_leader (731431) said:
That must be one hell of a pringle can..

Actually they used something more native to the area.

Re:Once you pop, you can't stop...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!!!

That's hella funny

Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[isdnip]

Weber State is famous for having launched its own satellite, Webersat, one of the OSCAR series. These kids are really at home with UHF and microwave radios!

In practical terms, the range of a microwave link, such as 2.4 GHz, is based on having line of sight without attenuation. The radio line of sight path is based on the horizon, with a simple guideline of roughly horizon (miles) = 1.4 * sqrt(height-in-feet). So if you have totally flat ground and 100-foot towers, your range to the horizon is 14 miles. The range of a hop is the sum of both sides' horizons. Now if you have a 2500-foot-high mountain to stand on, then your horizon is stretched to 70 miles.

The path loss is a function of distance, which antenna gain can make up for. The legality of doing this with unlicensed WiFi is a different question. Ham radio operators do this stuff routinely, but ham power limits are much higher, and there's no ERP limit. The 10 GHz band in particular is said to be popular in England. The crowded 144 and 430 MHz bands respond to similar rules. Attenuation by moisture in the air (serious form: rain fade) can get in the way, though. So if you're really looking for good distance, a nice place might be, oh, the Utah desert. Flat and no humidity.

So while it's possible to hack a good range with enough effort, conventional WiFi equipment is still not reliable getting from one side of my house to the other. It's really not a threat to the phone companies, especially in non-rural areas.

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[MikeDawg]

. . . These kids are really at home with UHF and microwave radios!

I'm going to go ahead and take it that you have never listened to KWCR 88.1 FM -- The college's radio station. You can't pick up a signal from the radio station once you're 10 miles away from the school!

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[BoyPlankton]

UHF is 300 - 3000 MHz ... 88.1 is well outside that ...

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[PureFiction]

So while it's possible to hack a good range with enough effort, conventional WiFi equipment is still not reliable getting from one side of my house to the other.

I hear this complaint often. The problem is that AP's use weak radio's, especially the cheap ones. Sometimes as low as 30mw.

Client cards use low power, almost always 30mw.

You want good signal? Use two 200mw senao/engenius/teletronics cards (boy, these companies change hands quickly...)

They sell them for $100 at teletronics.com and you can still find the old senao/engenius models on ebay and elsewhere for less.

200mw on both ends of a link lets you cut through the walls in your house, through the neighbors house, and out into the street :-)

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[BoyPlankton]

Weber State is famous for having launched its own satellite, Webersat, one of the OSCAR series.

Actually ... Webersat was their second satellite. Nusat was the first. Jawsat was the third. WSU is also where the Phase3D spaceframe was built.

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an online microwave path analysis script:

Microwave Radio Path Analysis

Re:Fine tradition of microwave hacking

[A]

Hey Mikey don't go talkin shit on your old stomping grounds. ;)

Hey and we got her turned all the way up to 500 watts ERP! Roy here we come! Actualy I should say turned down, as the transmiter is every winter. Something about a lightning struck fm transmitter out of texas not liking the utah winters.

Lessons Learned

[numbski]

Lessons Learned

1. Unsure of FCC regulations. Experiment could not be put into commercial application

The part15 rules would allow this so far as amplification goes. The part that would get you into trouble in a commercial application is the fact that your antenna, radio, and amp are not FCC certified as a system. You can't take a certfied amp, a certified radio, and a certified antenna, throw them together and call it a 'system'. You have to certify each combination individually, which costs roughly $10k. That being said, if you were were going to sell more than 10 of them, it would be worth the money.

2. Better inventory of equipment.

Spectrum analysis would probably be good too. Search for the least impeded part of the spectrum using peak hold, and use that area. Probably could have gotten better throughput that way. Just plug your antenna into the SA and viola!

3. Better P.R. and release of information to the public.

Local newspapers have been latching onto wireless broadband around here...especially ConvergeNow, which claimed a launch a year ago...one of the biggest wireless broadband scams EVER. And I had the misfortune of being a tech in a legally binding contract with them to help deploy. Screwed individuals out of thousands on their credit cards.

4. Smaller teams with designated responsibility and tasks. Groups were to large for interactions

Makes sense. ;)

5. Defined budget - working within a budget

That being said...someone want to lend me about $50k to finish up deployment in St. Louis? We're not on 2.4Ghz, and it's good tech! :)

Re:Lessons Learned

[rednaxela]

Certification shouldn't cost you 10k. Next time you need certification call these guys. Ask for Al Cerwithian - he did real well by us.

PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc.
6660-B Dobbin Road, Columbia, MD 21045
Tel: 410-290-6652
Fax: 410-290-6654

Web: www.pctestlab.com

Re:Lessons Learned

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that part of the Lessons Learned will be the structure of the schedule of fines levied by the FCC.

I rather suspect that Riley Hollingsworth and his colleagues will probably want to have a chat with them about it.

People keep forgetting that the 2.4GHz band used by the wireless LANs is primarily allocated to the Government Radiolocation Service, and to the Amateur Radio Service on a secondary basis. Wireless LANs and other Part 15 cruft have strict ERP limits imposed on them for very, very good reasons.

Re:Lessons Learned

[numbski]

...and this was a very low amped, narrow beam-width p2p link.

The FCC would probably applaud these students for their work. I've sat in on an FCC seminar on WiFi, and they're 100% behind WISP technology, and see it as a small bright spot in what has been a very bleak period for technology.

Quite spreading FUD.

Re:Lessons Learned

[Anonymous Coward]

You're fucking stupid. This is against regulation in the 2.4ghz band. Quit spreading bullshit.

In Related News....

[Tsali]

SCO servers were shut down in an apparent hacking attack via Linux drone computers bypassing security with a hyperbundle of Pringles cans...

News at 11.

latency

[UnderAttack]

The screen shots show a latency in the 2 second range. Why so long? Are they actually bouncing off some satellite with their dishes ;-).

BTW: This data is actually bad news for wireless networks. It tells you that you will have more and more interference issues as more people use them. Forget about full WLAN coverage from east to west coast. ;-)

watson_come_here.mp3

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article (yes, the article):
After verifying signal strength and quality the group in Bluffdale prepared an MP3 file for file transfer.

So this was really just a way to evade file-sharing restrictions on the campus network?

Utah record not valid

[RealProgrammer]

Actually I've been following these experiments.

They bounced the signal off Darl McBride's head, and the resulting distortion caused a rip in the fabric of space-time. That's why some reports have 72 miles and others 83. There was some heavy magnetomoronic craniorectal inversion in the signal.

This is similar to wind-aided records in track and field, and so the methods will have to be retested after Darl returns to his home planet.

Re:Utah record not valid

[Anonymous Coward]

Craniorectal? So he truly is an asshat...

Re:Utah record not valid

[mummers]

<i>They bounced the signal off Darl McBride's head</i><br>
Shurely shome mishtake. For such a large percentage difference (13.9% based on a variance of 10 from a base on 72) it must have been Darl's penis that was bounced off. Just ask any Utah ho' for confirmation.<br>

BFD

[avgrunt357]

Big F'n Deal.

If you look at the map, they punched the signal over water.

No wonder these eTards were able to get the distance out of it.

Try it over land and get back to me.

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be harder over water since water absorbs (attenuates?) the signal? I assume the humidity over a large body of water would be higher than say... over land.

Re:BFD

[kayen_telva]

wipe the vaseline out of your eyes and check it again.
only a small portion goes over "water".
its the great salt lake and the part they went over is actually dry.
the map is just denoting the border of the "lake"
many dry lakes in california are mapped the same way

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously some dicks speak before they know... Water actually causes greater atmospheric disturbances than over land. The only way land would cause a greater challenge is when attempting to locate line of site. True a mountain in the middle would likely cause a greater transmission barrier than a lake, but then again common sense is obviously not your strong point! Hence the reason rain, snow, and other water vapor cause problems with your satellite dish. Know before you show your true inteligence!!

http://www.ce.rit.edu/~fxheec/wireless/48
http: //www.hamuniverse.com/anttheory1.html

Re:BFD

[avgrunt357]

Than how is it that almost all radio broadcast attennas are set up over bodies of water/wetlands??

Of course, FM and AM are just that; they are not in the GHz range.

Hmm, you said "Water actually causes greater atmospheric disturbances than over land. "

No shit sherlock, but we aint talkin bout no flyin water in da atomsphere.

I am talking about a lake.

Over a cold body of water, a "Surface Duct" can occur just fine, allowing a channeling effect of the signal. This "ducting" provides shelter from other spurious signals above the duct to interfere; ala the sun, other nearby microwave channels.
Submarines use a similar principal by changing there depth to different Thermal levels to escape sonar.
The Thermal barriers channel the sound waves.

OK then, lets see:
The 70 mile attempt was done from Promontory to Magna. Almost 90% over water.
I am guessing that these guys got good results and said, "shit" its still flat as hell out to Draper, lets try it there.
And , they got good results.

Now then, to kayen, yes, I did see their map vs mapquests version, and it does seem to show that the portion of lake they shot it across is dry; but is it dry now? It is winter. The pictures they had of the day they did it, there were some nasty clouds in the air.

To the Anonymous coward:
Check this out http://classes.weber.edu/wireless/News.htm
It even says in the Article you guys shot it directly over the lake. And if there wasn't any wind to cause white caps, all the better.

Umm, this was line of sight. For that distance, you are not gonna get much out of any spurious reflections.
And no, you would not be able to punch it through a mountain, or any type of dirt based hill. Not with the power levels you used.

Again, air borne water is another subject completely. Yes, Snow, rain, Misty fog all cause problems with Microwave Broadcasts.

So, NO, there is no "Hence the reason" support that airborne water is the same as a lake. They/You didn't punch the signal through the lake; just directly above it.

Big friggen differnece!!
Btw, thanks for the RF review there @ ce.rit.edu.
But, if you want a real primer on RF, I will let you borrow my College Textbook.

Now then, what I would really like to know is, What are the exact modifications to the feed horns. (other than a Weber University sticker slapped on)
What kind of test Eq. was used to make these modifications.
I see that the final link speed was 1 and 2 Mbps.

My guess Coward, is that you are an Junior in college with less than half of you first semester in an RF class.

At best, your major is Telecommunications; hardcore RF stuff.
But, more than likely, you are a Computer Science major, all juiced about some RF stuff.

Stick to ripping Jenna Jamison dvd's in your dormroom while mastering the latest Shockwave utilities.

Re:BFD

[avgrunt357]

not when its cold.
hmm , winter olympics in salt lake.

typically, if there's a lot of snow on the ground, the air is pretty dry.

it's not texas

Looks like it was amplified

[rednaxela]

Equipment List:

2- Primestar Satellite Dishes with modified feedhorns
2- Laptop computers with 350 Cisco wireless cards
2- Bidirectional Amplifiers (1.5 watt)
Compass & GPS
Tripods
Cables and wires - MMCX RT ANG male to N Male on RG174, 72".
http://classes.weber.edu/wireless/Project%20 Inform ation.htm

They also stated they weren't sure of FCC regulations in the Lessons Learned page.
http://classes.weber.edu/wireless/Lesson%20 Learned .htm

FCC Regs state that the maximum power level for unlicensed devices in the 2.4 GHz range are:
Field Strength of Fundamental (millivolts/meter) - 50
Field strength of fundamental frequency harmonics (microvolts/meter) - 500

See http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2002/15/249/

In other words, it's cool, but it's illegal.

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[rednaxela]

Perhaps I should say that it *might* be illegal. I have no idea what the field strength generated by a 1.5 watt amp is at 3 meters (the distance that should have been mentioned in parent).

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the Pringles can!

Slow Down Cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

It's been 13 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Even the use of a high gain antenna is amplification in a way (ie. effective radiated power (ERP) is increased). Dunno about the states, but the ERP is often limited in many countries.

Given the timing issues in 802.11b one wonders how effective the link was (ie. what throughput they got).

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[Anonymous Coward]

It was amplified and they were above FCC reg's. The operated under HAM radio licenses

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[NIVRAM]

The (anonymous) coward above seems to be correct. The amateur band has some of the same frequencies as the 802.11b spectrum. Looking at their equipment, it is quite clear that the signal must have been amplified (1.5watt?) but not received and re-amplified along the way.

In order for it to be legal with the ham licenses they better have been sending their call signs out too. I didn't see any of that in the informaton or the photos... but I would assume that any wise amateur op would know that this is required by part 97.

Re:Looks like it was amplified

[mcdade]

Ya.. you can see the amplifier sitting on top of the support just before it goes into the antenna.. this is false advertising.. I would have been impressed if it was un-amplified.. seeing how that's changed the record for amp'ed wireless is like 320KM, this isn't even 1/2 the distance.

bogus.

No they won't.

[numbski]

For two reasons:

1. They don't care. It's a p2p link. If they were using an Omni, then perhaps. But that fact that it's a narrow spread and p2p, they're fine. Not to mention it was an educational endeavor and not a commercial one.

2. 1.5 watt amp is fine. Given the strength of the radio and the low gain of the antenna, they were well within range. I'm too lazy to look up the limits right now, but they're well within the legal limits.

Re:No they won't.

[Anonymous Coward]

The max ouput power for 2.4Ghz part 15 devices is 1 Watt max (30 dBm) 1.5 Watts is not OK. This also requires at least 75 channels for frequency hoppers. The ERP can be 36dBm max. Higher if fixed point-to-point:

part 15.247 (i) Systems operating in the 2400-2483.5 MHz band that are used exclusively for fixed, point-to-point operations may employ transmitting antennas with directional gain greater than 6 dBi provided the maximum peak output power of the intentional radiator is reduced by 1 dB for every 3 dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi.

I don't think it would be that difficult to get 80+ miles hilltop to hilltop with 1 Watt with decent tranceivers. I might be wrong, but I think the high speed 2.4Ghz internet equipment is designed with a max distance in mind due to the propagation time. Not sure though... I generally work with lower data rate and lower frequencies (902-928), 80 miles would be no problem with 1 Watt there...

Re:No they won't.

[A]

There was a licenced ham at each end so they fall under part 97 rules not part 15. Check the page again and look for ham call signs.

soudsn about right

[Brigadier]

after driving through utah I woudl say it's abotu the onl place desolate enough and rid of any disturbance be it microwave or otherwise. My cell phone was dead for about 2/3 of the drive. I think it's teh I80 or I70 or I76 no exits no trees no cars nothing just rocks.

Re:soudsn about right

[MikeDawg]

You haven't travelled much have you? Obviously you have never been through Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, or a number of other states, and to call Utah the most desolate is pretty sad.

But then again, I may be misunderstanding the statement you made because of the quality typing ability of the author.

Re:soudsn about right

[ZackSchil]

Are you driving through there right now? Your post seems to be breaking up. :)

Re:soudsn about right

[dwillden]

True, I-70 from CO to it's end point in central Utah is very desolate. I haven't been along it for a couple years so I don't know how good the cell signal there is. However all the major carriers have full coverage along the I-80 and I-15 corridors.

And isn't that desolation just beautiful? Sometimes it's nice to be able to drive for an hour or more at high speed without passing a single Wal-Mart Superstore.

Re:soudsn about right

[LilGuy]

No doubt... try driving across the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska without going insane from the drab scenery. If you like the occassional tree and flat land, then I suppose it wouldn't be the worst, but for any sane person it will drive you to the point where you're playing stupid games like counting car colors.

Re:soudsn about right

[dwillden]

True you've got Utah on drab, but not on desolate.

The only State in the Union that has more land under BLM administration than Utah is Nevada, and Nevada doesn't win by much. Then add the fact that this land is practically free for the taking. Live on and work it for five years and 160 acres are yours with just a small fee. This is courtesy of the Homestead Act. Yet nobody is taking this land. Why? Because it is totally worthless except to let the airforce drop bombs on. And thats just the west desert (home of the Bonniville Salt Flats, only place on earth where you can see the curvature of the earth)

Then we have the eastern and southern Utah deserts each with their own unique features.

Gotta love the endangered dirt around Zions Nat Park.

Un-amplified?

[erp6502]

Hmm... According to their project info page, they used two 1.5W bidirectional amplifiers. Probably not legitimate under part 15.

Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

I can feel some of the effects of the experiment even from here and hey... I live in NYC!

Google Cache of ConvergeNow link.

[numbski]

ConvergeNow

Bastards. Byron Farrington (CEO apparent) is one of the grandest scumbags ever. I've met him personally, thought he was pretty cool...until he screwed over so many people, including my own company.

NOT A RECORD AT ALL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the actual blog entry, Rob refers to the actual record of 310 km (192 miles) by a Swedish team.

Man, I know this is slashdot and no one reads the articles, but you thing the editors would once in a while.

Re:NOT A RECORD AT ALL!!!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The record is qualified as being a National record. I guess when someone turns up an alternative National Record, it will become a state record or area code record or whatever.

Sweet....

[numbski]

Thanks a ton. I don't use 2.4Ghz usually, too crowded, but good info nonetheless. Thanks!

pronunciation

[bobsledbob]

it's pronounced 'wee-ber' not 'web-er'

don't worry, sportscasters get it wrong all the time.

Re:pronunciation

[cujo_1111]

Then spell it with an extra 'e' to avoid confusion. Reminds me of the British sitcom with the woman who pronounced her surname of 'Bucket' as 'Bookay'.

It is spelt the same as the kettle BBQ, so it is pronounced the same way... Web-er

also:

[mindstrm]

Just because it's not amplified doesn't mean it's within power limits either.. the amount of transmit gain from the antenna is regulated as well.. though the US restrictions on this are more forgiving than other countries, effectively allowing for longer links.. if I remmeber correctly. Still, it is quite possible to blow the FCC limits without using an amplifier.

1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[Burdell]

If you read the actual pages, they used 1.5W amplifiers. Their "lessons learned" page says "Unsure of FCC regulations"; more like FCC regulations ignored. FCC regulations for unlicensed use of the 2.4GHz spectrum for communications limit you to 1W ERP; with 1.5W amps and high gain antennas, they were well beyond the FCC regulations. Give me a big enough amp and a good antenna and I can transmit 2.4GHz a lot longer distance, at least until the feds track me down.

Re:1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[general_boy]

Close but check part 15-247 again. It's max 1W (+30 dBm) transmitter power into up to a 6 dBi gain antenna (+36 dBm EIRP). For a point to point link the TX power must be backed off 1W by 1 dBm for every 3 dB of antenna gain over 6 dBi.

Let's say their hacked together antennas had 16 dBi of gain at 2.4 GHz. *For a certified combination* their max legal TX power would have been around +27 dBm (500 mW). Silly thing is, even with 1.5W of TX power they were throwing away more than the difference in 72" of RG-174 cable - and they still closed the link. Yecch.

So, they were busting more than one reg - over the absolute power limit of 1W, the EIRP limit for the antenna gain, and using an uncertified combination of radio/amp/antenna.

Re:1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[Glonoinha]

I seem to remember something from the last discussion about using Primestar dishes to focus Wifi - I was under the impression that the FCC limit on unlicensed broadcasts to 1W was only for non-directional (Omni-directional antennas) and they had some other (higher?) limit for tight beam communications.

I may be totally wrong on this one, but it is worth determining one way or the other.

Disclaimer : I'm pretty good at using my wifi gear stock out of the box, configuring it etc ... but I wouldn't know an FCC regulation if it walked up and bit me on the leg.

Re:1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[Burdell]

I always forget that it is 1W in, not 1W out. Someone at work even called the FCC and talked to them about that to verify it, and he has to correct me every time. D'oh!

Re:1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[niko9]

I think it would pay for at least 2 of these chaps to earn a no-code Amatuer Radio license. You have pretty much free range from 900Mhz and upwards.

You could use upto 1500 Watts of power and it would all be legal.

P.S. You would have to transmit callsigns, but thats really no biggie.

--

Re:1.5W is one heck of an "un-amplified" amplifier

[A]

I am a fellow student at this university and I know many of the people involved with this project. The professor has his extra ticket and there was a tech class ham at the other side. Now i'm not sure if they transmited call signs, and there choice of file to transfer wasn't the best, but as far as ERP they were well within limits as far as the FCC is concerned.

Actually

[anethema]

It seems it was amplified. I dont see unamplified on their site, and in the project materials it lists bidirectional signal amplifiers (1.5 watt).

Not to say this isnt still amazing. I'm setting up some long distance point to point WiFi myself, albiet with a bigger dish on one side for testing. Not 82 miles, but im doing it for practical reasons.

Primestar dishes seem to have a gain of around 20dB at 2.4ghz if you have a decent feedhorn. (20dB is a gain of around 100). I'll be using at least one old c-band dish. It should have a gain of 30dB or more. (thats a gain of around 1000)

My eventual plan is to set up a site on a mountain with a fairly high gain omnidirectional antenna, and then anyone who wants to connect to the LAN just points at it with a primestar dish. If i can find sponsors I will even make it 802.11G and connect it to the internet.

This way anyone can have wifi access, at least from home, and I wont need to blanket the town in access points, interfere with cordless phones/other networks, etc because without the high gain of the primestar dish you shouldnt even be able to see the network. Should be fun.

Re:Actually

[PureFiction]

My eventual plan is to set up a site on a mountain with a fairly high gain omnidirectional antenna, and then anyone who wants to connect to the LAN just points at it with a primestar dish.

The problem you are going to run into with more than a few clients associated over a long link like this is contention and timing. You will see network throughput plummet as multiple clients associate and begin talking; leading to massive interference/collision (see timing issues).

Maybe by then someone will have a reversed driver for the atheros / broadcom devices and we can tweak the MAC as needed for this kind of use...

Re:Actually

[YrWrstNtmr]

My eventual plan is to set up a site on a mountain with a fairly high gain omnidirectional antenna, and then anyone who wants to connect to the LAN just points at it with a primestar dish. If i can find sponsors I will even make it 802.11G and connect it to the internet.

Hope you have bulletproof lawyers.

Re:Actually

[aXis100]

We had this problem on the WaFreenet, so we set about creating some software to fix it.

The result was frottle. It's a bit of a kludge, but essentially provides a virtual token bus over ethernet. It runs at the wrong layer (UDP), but is suprisingly effective. Before, with 14 clients to the HillsHub AP (many clients in the 10's of kilometers), we'd get crippled throughput rates below 10kB/sec. Now multiple users can sustain data rates above 80kB/sec (or better depending upon load).

Re:Actually

[anethema]

I didnlt realize it was so bad, but yes something I have definatly considered is multiple access points around town. (On buildings or mountains, so you'd still use the dish) They would also have to link with their own antennas so this begins to become a complicated problem.

Honestly networking and WiFi arent my strong suit. Me and a friend are working on this, I'm more the electrical engineer and hes the software/networking guru.

But yes, I've seen large scale wifi and an acesss point every 20 feet (some have thousands and thousands of them) seems like a wasteful brute force way to do things. Imagine if the cellular network operated like that. Bleugh. I cant even imagine the routing nightmare.

But yeah, thanks for your input..things are just getting off the ground now, various companies have sent me access points to test/etc.

A divine gift

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think they got the plans for it by reading off some gold plates in a hat?

in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

New Wi-Fi Connection Record Set In Utah... .... most permanent connections to a single node...

One key-press errors are insignificant

[Qinopio]

Now excuse me while I go and finish formatting my hard dick.

So they finally got a signal...

[Aadain2001]

..from earth to the planet that Darl McBride is living in. It'll be a loooooooong time before any one is able to get a distance greater than that ;)

bs!

[andy_fish]

That's BS! I tried going 80 miles away from MY router and I didn't get a signal at all! What garbage.

Award

[LilGuy]

..and the Award for the most annoying advertisement of the year goes to...

seriously did anyone else try clicking the link at the bottom of the article? What the HELL was that?! The stupid ad took up the whole page AND the little X button was a trick! COME ON... the damn thing NEVER went away... it would fade out and just as soon as you move your mouse it faded back in!@#$%!%# If thats what the WWW is coming to, count me out.. I'll just stick to the trollgroups and the HARDCORE IRC!

Simple answer

[AndroidCat]

It was in Utah. Perhaps it just seemed a lot longer?

But it was amplified.

[davidylin]

Look at the project inventory list. 1.5 watt bidirectional amps.

Sheesh.

Will the Third World Please Step Up?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my mind, the greatest implication for long distance transfer of data is going to be in the third world where standard phone and data lines just don't exist. I've read a few articles on the attempts to set up long distance wireless networks in Africa and other places by a variety of means. The end result? The end result is that information is given to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to it. I've also read that farmers in the US rely upon computer/internet data for information on things such as weather and disease, important things if you farm for a living.

If we can offer this type of information in rural third world areas it can only improve on the quality of life. Let's think of the third world (in a very simplistic manner obviously) as the US 150 years ago. The telegraph revolutionized the US. Maybe a long distance WiFi connection in a country with no FCC worries can do the same thing.

Maybe this experiment won't change the world, but then again, maybe it will.

Water

[Detritus]

RF paths over water are also susceptible to weird propagation effects, such as tropospheric ducting, and dynamic multipath from waves on the water's surface.

Back when AT&T used microwave relays for long distance telephone calls, they had to design in a very large link margin to get the all-weather reliability that was needed for the telephone system.

82 Miles??

[ImTwoSlick]

Then how come I can't get 82 feet at my university??

HOWTO: Drop Your Price

[Vagary]

Presumably they stuck with 802.11b because they wanted their customers to use off-the-shelf receivers?

There's nothing technologically novel about sending digital data over radio waves, the reason that its so popular right now is that it's standardized which has lead to it becoming very cheap. So anything that doesn't follow that standard is not benefitting from economies of scale.

And yet...

[bluesnowmonkey]

And yet I can't get a stable connection between two rooms in my apartment. 30 feet, that's all I'm asking for.

Re:yeah. here's how they did it.

[uvsc_wolverine]

I did a little WarDriving on the freeway between Victorville, CA and Los Angeles. Did you know that the Disney Channel building has an unsecured wireless LAN?

I laughed every time I came up with an access point where the SSID was 'linksys' AND it was unsecured. I think the final tally was fifteen of those. I got a total of thirty hits going down the freeway and only five were using any sort of encryption. Granted they could have been secured via MAC address, but I was just playing around, and didn't feel like checking (besides I think CHP would have arrested me for stopping in the middle of the freeway just to check for an open node).

In Related News

[Nom du Keyboard]

In related news, Pringles today announced ultra-Pringles-bulk-super-can for sale at Price Club and other bulk outlet stores, this 82 mile tall can...

not my story

[LinuxBeerMugs]

heheh thats what they get for not posting my story instead.

Wireless is best for rewiring anyway...

[Kjella]

Every new student housing I know (and a lot of old ones retrofitted) *and* the two latest building projects I looked at directed at young people had added cables to the housing. Why? Because the cost isn't really that high when added at build time. Pulling cables everywhere afterwards would be expensive.

Same with new housing areas. They drop the cables in the ground now, whether they use them or not. Compared to digging up the entire area again, it's cheap. Ok this long-distance wireless is cool, but for anything like relatively densely populated areas, I think wired is the future.

The great thing about wireless is when the wires are actually in the way... like e.g. to your laptop or something else you'd actually move around. If not, I'd rather have a 100Mbit switch (as I do now) and a 1Gbit switch in the future :) Though the next one will probably be a combo with wireless for my laptop...

The only other good use I've seen for wireless, which would be a "everywhere" access like my cellphone, is currently insanely priced. Right now I wouldn't consider it for anything, and even in the future I don't see it as my primary internet connection. Again, maybe workplaces, universities and other places where you have a laptop you carry around. But in general? No. Not until the prices come waaaay down.

Kjella

Re:Wireless is best for rewiring anyway...

[gpapilion]

I couldn't disagree more with your thought.

The digging of the hole is expensive, whether the housing subdivision exists or not. Each additional cable put in the ground is relatively cheap when compared to the initial wire, but whether the area is in use or not makes very little difference.

By extenstion, wiring your home is still an expensive propisition, since almost all the runs are individual wires. The reason more home are coming pre-wired is to avoid the surface mounted raceways, and jacks. Things just look prettier when they are in the walls.

Real costs savings are achived by installing reusable infrastructure like cabletrays, and conduits since it cuts down on labor time during future expansions, and upgrades.

Wireless also helps in the regard since a single access point can serve ten or so users at once. This does come at a price, which is a lower connection speed. But, for most applications, wireless speeds are more than adiquite, and users enjoy the lack of cabling. Internet applicaitons are often limited by the outgoing connection speed, which for many offices is less than 10 Mb/s. If they are sharing document, most often they are small enough so that users don't notice the slower load time.

Maybe something like TurboCell?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was researching long distance connections, I heard of some folks who used TurboCell by Karlnet (www.karlnet.com). I'm not fully fluent in the technology and they seem like a weird company that doesn't have their product strategy firmed up, but here's my take (please correct me if you're in the know). The initial product was firmware for specific access points that used the 802.11 physical layer but a proprietary network stack with tweaked timings (maybe custom protocols) for better throughput over long distances.

Now it seems like they are trying to focus on OEM sales, and it's hard to get good info about the best way to get good long distance throughput. It seemed to me that the 802.11 protocols were not at all designed for long distance communications; I am also curious if current products are well suited for this application or if these runs are a flaky hack.

Of the shell equipment, but modified.

[Anonymous Coward]

They use off the shell commercial equipment, but they modified it. Used unidirectional antenna's and an 1.5 Watt amp. After a reboot they got a 2Mb more or less stable connection. Not very special.

I'm more interested in the results when u use the original 100mW omnidirectional antennas. And not the connection itself, but from what distance you can sniff the connection. I expect this will be much further than 82 miles if you use specialized equipment.

Re:yeah. here's how they did it.

[interstellar_donkey]

I've seen that. It surprises me how many WAPs are unsecured. Big corperations, government agencies, homes. Schools seem to be pretty bad (not colleges, but high schools and elementary schools). As I've taught at many of these schools (and had permission to use their network), I would turn on the laptop and immediatly get an IP via DHCP and be online.

Simply amazing.

Now I can't have kids....

[Dj Stingray]

Since they have been doing this (testing/calibrating) up in Ogden I can't have kids. I live in Salt Lake (within 80 miles).

The doctors say to buy a lead cup to protect what remaining sperm I have...

smart smart smart smart smart.....

I don't have a signature.... but if I did, it would say:

All your base.... = the worst signature ever.

Thanks and goodnight.

mod parent down -1, Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay more attention, you'll see that Utah is mentioned more often in Slashdot stories than any other state. Look for SCO stories, stories about Sen. Orrin Hatch, stories about Novell, Lineo (or what used to be Lineo), new fiber-optic city-wide networks, etc, etc ...

my Pringle can

[martin]

is bigger than yours... :-)

In other news...

[rohan.mitchell]

the students have settled with the RIAA for illegally transferring an mp3.
See, you can relate anything to an evil corporation :)

Rohan

Not to mention...

[dtmos]

Phuket, a delightful resort in Thailand.

Re:Utah ? NOW THIS IS FUNNY!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.exmormon.org/whylft149.htm

INSTITUTE DIRECTOR RESIGNS FROM THE CHURCH

"I was honest in a gentle way with institute students about the church's history and doctrine. CES and PH leaders refused to acknowledge that superior resources on church history and doctrine are available from books, journals, and websites labeled by church leaders as "anti." And that most of the independent sources are not anti at all. They are objective."

I need to admit up right away that I'm a little bitter. I feel lied to and used. The church had every opportunity to be truthful from the time my wife and I took the discussions to the time we left.

Out of the Mormon Church

My wife and I left the LDS Church on August 7th, 2002, the same day that I resigned as Institute Director of the Pullman Washington Institute of Religion, and the LDS Church Education System (CES). I had worked full-time for CES for 27 years. I'm also a former bishop, high councilman, stake young men's president, high priest's group leader, ward mission leader, ward young men's president, and more. I wasn't a casual Mormon who lived on the fringes.

I had been seriously looking for another job for some time due to harassment from Priesthood (PH) leaders and CES administrators. I couldn't take it anymore. They were not crazy about my teaching style. I was honest in a gentle way with institute students about the church's history and doctrine. I wasn't impressed with their denial and dishonesty. CES and PH leaders refused to acknowledge that superior resources on church history and doctrine are available from books, journals, and websites labeled by church leaders as "anti." And that most of the independent sources are not anti at all. They are objective.

I felt compelled to teach the truth about the church's drastic revision of history and doctrine. It was an ethical bind: by remaining loyal and teaching the LDS viewpoint about history and doctrine, I was being dishonest but valuable to the church. However, by being honest with the students I was branded as disloyal and I could be fired. I found out that it is impossible to change the system from the inside. The humility that the church encourages members to adopt--to remain teachable--is not present in church leaders when they feel it necessary to protect the church's image.

As one general authority told church educators, "Some things that are true are not very useful;" (Boyd K. Packer to a Church Educational System Symposium at BYU in 1981). It was a commandment to professionals to hide uncomfortable truths about Mormon history and doctrine from students instead of teaching it accurately. I gradually learned that loyalty is and always has been more important to church leaders than honesty. Mormons from the beginning have revised their history to create a sympathetic image of a people who have been persecuted and driven by ruthless, godless, hypocritical mobs for no good reason. It isn't true. It's also a myth that Mormon prophets and apostles have always been godlike, infallible, and exemplary representatives of God. Much of the time they have, but many times they have broken the commandments they are supposed to model. Nevertheless I felt tremendous pressure to teach what CES ordered while trying to find another job. I gradually lost respect for the church leaders because in annual temple recommend interviews (interviews to determine one's worthiness to enter temples) they demanded that I be honest. Yet they wanted me to be dishonest with my students. When I tried to be honest they called it undermining students' testimonies or undermining the authority of the prophets of God. The vast majority of students found the honest approach in my classes refreshing. The pressure from leaders resulted in weekly migraine headaches requiring a prescription to manage and regular prescriptions of acid reflux medication to prevent ulcers.

The Second to the Last Straw--Bishop L

On August 4th, 2002 our bishop called my wife and I into his office for an int

That's nice but ...

[BallPeenHammer]

I don't think wireless coverage in Utah is a major issue just yet.

How about all the dead zones in major cities like New York?

The central precepts of Mormanism never mentioned

[Anonymous Coward]

They are (dont forget to ask your missionary / fellow member about these):

1. God was once a man who lived on an earth, was married and a polygamist

2. He lived such a good life he earned his exaltation through good works - going to heaven

3. After he died He was resurrected with a perfect body of flesh and bone - gone to heaven

4. Ditto for his plural wives

5. He received power to create worlds including this earth, from His Father (Grandfather God) in Heaven (who received if from His Father in Heaven (Great Grandfather God), etc. [ NO: THIS RECURSION NEVER ENDS! ]

6. He impregnated his wives in heaven in the way that women get pregnant on earth. "FATBOY SLIM IS FUCKING IN HEAVEN.. FUCKING AND FUCKING AND FUCKING IN HEAVEN"

7. Through procreation God and his multiple wives created billions of spirit children (it's a woman's duty to be eternally pregnant)

8. The spirit children fought a war in heaven to preserve agency and Satan (one of Jesus' brothers, a son of God, and one of the brothers of the rest of God's children) was cast down to earth to tempt mankind to sin

9. It is the duty of women to prepare bodies for as many spirits as possible (women practice having babies on earth and will continue to do it for eternity) and men get to put them there. Polygamy is the order of marriage in heaven.

10. Jesus was one of God's spirit children just like the rest of us, making Him a spirit brother of mankind (equal but smarter and better behaved)

11. Men and women are supposed to prove that they are worthy to live in the highest kind of heaven there is--the highest degree of glory of the celestial kingdom--based on their deeds in this life (Abraham 3:22-23). They have to prove that they are worthy to be a god.

12. Jesus got his physical body because God the Father had sexual intercourse with Mary, making Him Jesus' biological father as well as his spiritual father. Bruce R. McConkie, a former apostle says that 1 Nephi 11:18 points to this truth (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Volume 1) -- I BET SHE CAME TOO!!!

13. Mormon leaders taught for decades (late 1840's to 1904) that unless members practiced polygamy they could not enjoy the highest degree of the celestial kingdom because it was the most important law given to mankind

14. Mormon leaders taught that black individuals were unworthy to hold the Mormon priesthood because they had been cursed by God for their lack of valiance before coming to earth during the war in heaven. They had not been supportive enough of God and Jesus and were cursed for their lack of faith with a dark skin and miserable lives (Joseph Fielding Smith, "The Way to Perfection"). Brigham Young decreed that if a black male/female married a white person only death "on the spot" for both of them could atone for that drastic sin.

15. Joseph Smith changed his story about the First Vision several times beginning in 1832 and ending in about 1840. Each new version was more impressive than the preceding one, but contradicted "facts" in earlier versions, and actual events in his life

16. Joseph preyed on gullible young women to carry out his sexual fantasies under the guise of obedience to God. He told adolescent girls as young as 14 that they would forfeit their own and their family's right to eternal life if they didn't marry him and consummate the marriage in the customary way. He would be indicted and convicted of rape and other sex crimes today. In Joseph's case however, he married more than a dozen young women, plus other men's wives, 5 pairs of sisters, and a mother and a daughter.

17. A mountain of good scientific evidence proves conclusively that the Book of Mormon could not possibly be what Joseph claimed. The archaeological and DNA evidence alone are devastating to his claims

18. The Mormon Temple endowment ceremony is without a doubt taken from the Masonic ceremonies Joseph Smith participated in just weeks before he introduced the temple endowment. The grips, tokens, covenants, secret words, keys, etc. were word for word the same when first introduced. Members who were Masons previous to Joseph joining the fraternal order unashamedly referred to the Mormon endowment as "celestial masonry."

82 mile long antenna?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they used an 82 mile long antenna, doesn't that kind of negate the "wireless" part of the equation?

This was not unamplified!

[Anonymous Coward]

Per the page:

2- Bidirectional Amplifiers (1.5 watt)- http://www.fab-corp.com/

This was not an unamplified test!

passive WiFi reflector tower?

[Doc Ruby]

I've got a 200m tall tower on a hill 400m away from my roof. Can I somehow point my WiFi AP at some kind of reflector on top of the tower, to cover the neighborhood with WiFi? How do other nodes return a signal via the reflector? Is there a way for this to work with mobile devices to the reflector to a stationary AP?

Banned AP?

[Anonymous Coward]

How in the world can they manage that?

Re:yeah. here's how they did it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've WarDriven my way to and from work several times, and at last count (over 2 months ago) there were 56 nodes in the 13 miles I drive to work. 4 of those miles are through hilly terrain where there are no nodes.

Of these 56 nodes, something insane like 45 of them were unsecured, with about half of those being left in the default state. And yes, most of them are Linksys access points.

My favorite was the medical building with an unsecured WLAN...

The accademic approach of problem solving: reboot

[sfmarco]

Note the accademic approach to address the signal strength:

After rebooting, the problem was resolved and signal strength and quality was restored. We then were able to FTP the MP3 file and have net meeting conversation.

They truly used off-the-shelf components!

Re:Wow.

[Worldly Iconoclast]

Whoever modded me down is a faggot.

Re:Utah ? NOW THIS IS FUNNY!

[kin_korn_karn]

So how does this differs from any other organized religion?

And were promptly arrested...

[Anonymous Coward]

...by the RIAA for illegal file-sharing.

Pringles

[dedalus2000]

anyone notice the can of Pringles in picture 19 looks like it was a primestar parabolic and a Pringles yagi. :D

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets take them point by point. Considering you provided no references for your "doctrine" I will either confirm or refute in the same manner.

1. God was once a man who lived on an earth, was married and a polygamist

Yes, God was once a man, possibly was married, (when you get married ie on earth or later is not as important as if you are married,) possibly was a polygamist

2. He lived such a good life he earned his exaltation through good works - going to heaven

We do not as a church believe that good works alone are sufficient to get you into heaven "works without faith are dead" see Paul in Hebrews and Romans

3. After he died He was resurrected with a perfect body of flesh and bone - gone to heaven

Resurrected, Yes. And then judged worth of God's presence

4. Ditto for his plural wives

Resurrected Yes, all are redeemed. Then, assuming they were judged to lived their lives in accordance with the truth they knew they go to heaven with their spouses or alone

5. He received power to create worlds including this earth, from His Father (Grandfather God) in Heaven (who received if from His Father in Heaven (Great Grandfather God), etc. [ NO: THIS RECURSION NEVER ENDS! ]

This is grey and here is my opinion. God has not revealed how power is given, but I believe it is earned. ie because you earn the respect of the smallest particles that make up the universe, you have power. Power to ask them an they obey you out of respect. (My personal opinion) As to the question of the origin of this power, yeah it goes on forever and yeah that's what everybody is reduced to. What was there before the Big Bang? Nothing? Another Big Bang?

6. He impregnated his wives in heaven in the way that women get pregnant on earth. "FATBOY SLIM IS FUCKING IN HEAVEN.. FUCKING AND FUCKING AND FUCKING IN HEAVEN"

It is not taught that the way to create spirits in heaven is through physical intercourse as the end product would be physical not spiritual. If it does turn out to be like "FUCKING" as you so eloquently put it, would it be that bad? Geez, I kind of like doing it down here. :) I will leave out all personal comments about you not getting any.. errr.. I guess I won't.

7. Through procreation God and his multiple wives created billions of spirit children (it's a woman's duty to be eternally pregnant)

Ummm ... see above. I don't think the spiritual creation process will be like our physical birth process here on earth, but in pricipal yes you are correct.

8. The spirit children fought a war in heaven to preserve agency and Satan (one of Jesus' brothers, a son of God, and one of the brothers of the rest of God's children) was cast down to earth to tempt mankind to sin

Right on.

9. It is the duty of women to prepare bodies for as many spirits as possible (women practice having babies on earth and will continue to do it for eternity) and men get to put them there. Polygamy is the order of marriage in heaven.

You put it in the worst terms possible, how about "It is the privilage of women to raise children on earth and it is also good practice for raising spirit children" Pretty much the same thing just not indentured servitude. Although marriage is required, polygamy is not REQUIRED, it is accepted.

10. Jesus was one of God's spirit children just like the rest of us, making Him a spirit brother of mankind (equal but smarter and better behaved)

Yes.

11. Men and women are supposed to prove that they are worthy to live in the highest kind of heaven there is--the highest degree of glory of the celestial kingdom--based on their deeds in this life (Abraham 3:22-23). They have to prove that they are worthy to be a god.

Sound fair doesn't it? You don't want that bully in third grade to have godly powers, do you? Until you prove you can handle you aren't going to get it ( or in my view DESERVE it)

12. Jesus got his physical body because God the Father

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that was a great response!! I am pleasantly surprised.

Just a few comments:

No comment on this as I've never heard of this one, I'll look into it. Just off hand though, 14 was a pretty normal marriage age in his time and polygamy was not against the law of the time.

See the other threads here. It is documented in multiple church resources, from the large History of the Church to geneology records, historical accounts, etc.

This is probably one of the most disturbing things he has done. Coercing girls this young to have sex or lose salvation for themselves and their families is rape, pure and simple.

There is no other way to describe what this man did.

Either it is a grand forgery on a scale that has never been imitated before (ie Bad stuff straight from the guy with horns) or it is what is says it is. Decide for yourself.

I have, it's fiction. L Ron Hubbard could craft some fiction himself, and there are details around the sources where Joseph obtained inspiration for many parts of the book of mormon (no, not devine :-)

No doubt it was. What are you trying to prove?

Nothing, except that the church continually and vehemently denies any kind of link. If you agree, don't tell anyone else as the leadership have been quick to excommunicate those who confirm any link between masonic and occultic rituals and the LDS temple ceremonies.

Christianity and the occult have a very unfriendly relation to each other.

At any rate, you are surprisingly candid and open minded for an LDS member. Are you sure you're in good standing? :-)

I hope your research is enlightening...

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

18. The Mormon Temple endowment ceremony is without a doubt taken from the Masonic ceremonies Joseph Smith participated in just weeks before he introduced the temple endowment. The grips, tokens, covenants, secret words, keys, etc. were word for word the same when first introduced. Members who were Masons previous to Joseph joining the fraternal order unashamedly referred to the Mormon endowment as "celestial masonry."

Bravo! One of the most liberal Mormons I've ever met. Did you know this post could get you in hot water with your Bishop or Stake President?

You're well on your way. You're almost there. If you have a good reasoning mind you'll be an apostate before you know it. I think you'll find the information on Joseph Smith enlightening. Make sure you do some study on the Book of Abraham too. You'll start to see where the seed of hatred were sewn for the African race.

No, no, don't bother to find out for yourself, just go around spouting hacknyed half-truths to anyone who will listen.

HUH? you pretty much confirmed almost everything this poster said. You are ignorant to a number of points that are based on what has been preached by your early church leaders but that will come with time.

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

18. The Mormon Temple endowment ceremony is without a doubt taken from the Masonic ceremonies Joseph Smith participated in just weeks before he introduced the temple endowment. The grips, tokens, covenants, secret words, keys, etc. were word for word the same when first introduced. Members who were Masons previous to Joseph joining the fraternal order unashamedly referred to the Mormon endowment as "celestial masonry."

Hey there is another quite posible reason behind this. Where did the Masons get their "tokens" from? Coulda come from Solmons Temple...which was a temple of God. The same things were practiced in ancient times as they are today...hence the similarity! Ooooooooo

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey there is another quite posible reason behind this. Where did the Masons get their "tokens" from? Coulda come from Solmons Temple...which was a temple of God. The same things were practiced in ancient times as they are today...hence the similarity! Ooooooooo

That's a great myth that the Morg perpetuates. In order for it to be true, the Masons would have to be founded in some authenticity.

If you really want some truth here's a good book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail /-/0521 396549/ref=ase_rpcman/103-6913381-0125414?v=glance &s=books
It puts the founding of freemasonry not in Jerusalem, but in Scotland in the 16th Century.

I know what you're spewing. I've done it myself. The culture has a number of these little lies to perpetuate itself. It's like the one we all used on the mission when we'd tell people that the wine that Jesus drank was actually more similar to grape juice. Just another lie we tell ourselves to justify our crazy cult practices.

Okay...

[mindstrm]

Look. You can debate exact definitions all you want, okay?

Joe average cannot legally set up a link such as this, and use it for whatever.

The distance challenge with wifi is all about power, and precision.. if you are allowed to violate FCC regs, I could build you a wifi link to the moon, it's not a problem.

I don't really care what modulation technique is used.. if it's in an unlicensed band, and available to joe average, that's what matters. Nothing more. For that matter, for a point to point link, it doesn't even matter if it's 802.11 at all.. a proprietary protocol in the same band is just fine, and might even work better.

802.11, btw, includes specs for FHSS systems, and is indeed 'Wifi"

Yes, it's cool that some students made an 80km link. But it's not surprising, nor really a large feat of engineering, though I"m sure it was a fun project.

Showing all the calculations for gain, cable & path loss, timing adjustments to the protocol, and showing how it all stays within FCC regulations for joe average would have made a much more interesting read.

Re:The central precepts of Mormanism never mention

[Anonymous Coward]

As a temple attending Latter-day Saint and a Freemason I would like to take an opportunity here to make a few comments. First it is quite true that there are similarities between the temple endowment and the masonic ritual. There are also a number of diferences.

Joseph Smith likely used the masonic rituals, which were well known to his followers, as a means of teaching religious ideas. We would do well to remember that no one ever recived the temple endowment in a lodge of freemasons and no one was ever made a mason in a Latter-day Saint temple.

In all the years that I have been both a member of the church (all my life) and a Mason (more than 20 years now) I have never had a conflict between the two, nor has any bishop or other church leader and they all know of my association as I wear a masonic pin on my suit jacket every sunday to church.