Rolling Your Own Wireless Communications System?

Posted by Cliff on Friday January 23, 2004 @11:53AM from the keeping-in-touch dept.

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."

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I made my own by slash-tard · 2004-01-23 12:00 · Score: 0, Troll

I used some custom DSP's from TI, some RF modulators from Radio Shack and some standard 12 guage wire. Works better than most commercial solutions costing hundreds more.
A little late in the game by ciroknight · 2004-01-23 12:53 · Score: 0, Troll

But why is everyone here trying to answer him with things that aren't in the parameter of the original question? I mean the guy wants to roll his own Wireless communicators, why doesn't someone give him some links to bluetooth equipment, or tell him the electronic issues of this, or even how to convert a pda (running linux of course) into a communicator? These are the kinds of things I would expect.. come on slashdot, you can certainly do better than this...

p.s. Sorry I couldn't help, i know nothing about Radio communications....

--
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Re:No PC by Alan+Partridge · 2004-01-23 13:31 · Score: 0, Troll

T-H-E-A-T-R-E

OR

T-H-E-A-T-E-R

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That was classic intercourse!
Re:Challenge by Torgus+Dragon · 2004-01-24 03:48 · Score: 0, Troll

your all gay. especially you theater fags. go lik sum ass. my 1st post on slashdot and its lame.