Slashdot Mirror
Rolling Your Own Wireless Communications System?
nuggetman asks: "My high school, like most others, has a theater program. One critical element of the show is the tech crew - the group of people behind the scenes who keep it all running. Communication between the stage manager (myself) and crew members (as well as between crew members) is critical. For this job right now, we're using standard hand-held walkie-talkies. They get the job done, but they're susceptible to dead batteries, incompatibility between VOX headsets, and interference from janitors, the office, hall monitors, and even the local McDonald's. We've been wanting to invest in a theater-communication system, but they can run extremely expensive. Is there any hardware out there that could use a standard PC (Linux or Windows) and some wireless headsets to roll your own communication system that could cover a long enough range (say the theater which is the size of a gym plus a decent range outside it) at a low enough cost? Our school just installed 802.11b/g throughout the hallways, so we could tap into that if necessary and add our own router near the stage if we had to."
1) Set up a private Counter Strike Server somewhere on the school LAN.
2) Get a laptop (with an 802.11g card in it, of course) and backpack for each crewmember.
3) Every crew member joins the game on their laptop, sets the laptop to never suspend, throws it in their backpack, and uses headsets to communicate with their team members!
Other than the sound of an explosion every three minutes or so, and the occasional "Terrorists Win!" all your communications problems are solved!
libertarianswag.com
Use yelling. Everyone comes equiped with all the right hardware. No sweat.
Some of my friends and I make up the A/V crew at my school, and I came up with an ingenious solution yet to be implemented: a zipline. The A/V booth is about 20 feet higher than the stage and a good 75 feet away, and we decided that a zipline would be the best way to get down to the stage to tell somebody something important.
I guess if you need to tell somebody something who's level with you then you'd have to invest in some model rocket engines or something.
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
Makes you wonder how in the hell Shakespear ever got by without a Slashdot subscription.
Sheesh. It's high school, dude.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
And you can build a great communication system. It's easy to do, even my 5 year old nephew can do it.
All you need is some tin cans and some stri-
Wait, does string count as "wireless?"
Just use the goddamn cellphones everybody has anyway. You can even send SMSes if you need silent communications sometimes.
You can find information on rolling your own wireless communications system here and here.
Note that the subject line wasn't "Good Info".
You're a high school kid with walkie-talkies that can be used in pranks on McDonalds customers, janitors, and hall monitors, and you want to get rid of them?
The U.S. education system must be going downhill fast.
For something this "critical", you need technology that won't fail, but will also work in the kind of vast distances you're talking about. I suggest tin cans and string. Of course, you'll have to make sure nobody in the audience brought scissors, but with all the hi-tech anit-terrorism stuff they throw in schools these days, surely nobody can get in with sharp objects.