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Build Your Own Cell tower
BlakeCaldwell writes "If you're the type who dreads being dragged kicking and screaming into the use of a cell phone, Samsung sells their Long Range Cordless Phone. With an incredible (for landlines) 30-mile range, the set includes a caller ID-capable LCD and is able to communicate with the base-station, acting as an intercom."
It's not so much that I don't want a cell phone, it's more that I don't see any use paying $40-50 a month for something I don't use more than 100 minutes a month. Even if I only got five miles of range out of it, it would easily cover 99% of my needs.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This sounds to me like it'll be short-lived. More than ten people in your neighborhood get one and it's all over.
Could these be adapted for slow (modem speed) wifi?
$0.02,
ptd
I'm an animal lover -- they're delicious!
FWIW I avoid cell phones because the cost is just too damn high for what little I need one for. I'd consider pay-as-you-go without some stupid limit placed upon how soon I need to use up my time or artificial wallet robbing schemes
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Most of these things are illegal in the US. They use frequecies assigned to other services, and power that far exceeds limits in FCC part 15.
I don't know about other places, but using that in the US risks huge fines ($10,000).
If God had meant for man to see the sunrise, He would have scheduled it later in the day.
I live downtown in a *small* rural community. I can take my 900Mhz cordless to the corner store, the parks, and a couple of restaurants without it dropping calls. Plus, I have bonus of looking like Zack Morris as I stroll around with my big-ass phone.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
Only friends and family know my cellphone number and perhaps my car garage.
I've never been bothered by telemarketers on my cell phone yet. With this, you can get harrassed by them all day long.
With this, you'll need to leave town to get peace and quiet.
now I can have fake "cell phone" conversations with my "girlfriend" on my own network, with no chance of that phone ringing halfway through to give me away...
I read slashdot for the sigs...
I have a hard enough time finding my portable phone in my house. Now it can get lost within 30 miles? Eep.
These have been around for years. Why is this news? They are not legal for general use in the US.
*Pages 1--4 from Microsoft Word - 45968.doc* Federal Communications Commission DA 05- 336 Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D. C. 20554 In the Matter of Pang Cheng, d/ b as Best Wok 1 Westville, New Jersey File No. EB- 03- PA- 029 NAL/ Acct. No. 200432400001 FRN: 0009- 3455- 62 MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Adopted: February 7, 2005 Released: February 9, 2005 By the Chief, Enforcement Bureau: I. INTRODUCTION 1. In this Memorandum Opinion and Order (" Order"), we deny a petition for reconsideration filed by Pang Cheng, d/ b as Best Wok (" Best Wok"), and we affirm the Forfeiture Order issued May 21, 2004, in the amount of ten thousand dollars ($ 10,000) for willful violation of Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (" Act"). 2 At the time of the noted violation Best Wok owned a restaurant located at 1070 Delsea Drive, Westville, New Jersey. The noted violation involves Best Wok's operation of radio transmitting equipment on the frequency 145.8376 MHz without a license issued by the Commission. II. BACKGROUND 2. The Enforcement Bureau (" Bureau') received a complaint alleging that Best Wok was operating radio transmitting equipment on the two meter amateur frequency 145.835 MHz without a license. On October 16, 2001, and January 22, 2003, the Bureau sent Best Wok letters warning that operation of radio transmitting equipment without a license is in violation of Section 301 of the Act and could subject it to penalties. The certified mail return receipts indicate that Best Wok received the warning letters on October 25, 2001, and January 27, 2003, respectively. 3. On February 28, 2003, an agent from the Commission's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, field office (" Philadelphia Office") drove to the Westville, New Jersey, area to determine whether Best Wok was operating radio transmitting equipment without a license. At approximately 10: 45 a. m., the agent began monitoring a constant radio signal on or near 145.835 MHz. At 11: 10 a. m., the agent used direction finding techniques to determine that the source of the transmissions was the Best Wok restaurant 1 The Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture(" NAL"), NAL/ Acct No. 200432400001 (Enf. Bur., Philadelphia Office, released February 26, 2004) and the Forfeiture Order, 19 FCC Rcd 8939 (Enf. Bur. 2004), were captioned "Best Wok." Information submitted with the petition for reconsideration indicates that Best Wok is a sole proprietorship business owned by Pang Cheng. According, we have recaptioned this matter as "Pang Cheng, d/ b as Best Wok." 2 47 U. S. C. 301. 1 Federal Communications Commission DA 05- 336 2 at 1070 Delsea Drive, Westville, New Jersey. 4. At 11: 30 a. m. on February 28, 2003, the agent entered the Best Wok restaurant and inspected the radio transmitting equipment in the presence of the restaurant manager, Mr. Sae C. Hauwo, who admitted that Best Wok was operating a long range cordless telephone system. The system included a base unit at the restaurant and a mobile unit in Mr. Hauwo's vehicle. The agent used frequency-measuring equipment to determine that the base unit was transmitting on 145.8376 MHz. Mr. Hauwo stated that neither Best Wok nor any of its employees had a license to operate the radio transmitting equipment. Additionally, Mr. Hauwo asserted that, when Best Wok received the October 16, 2001, warning letter, it ceased operation of the lon
Bruce Perens.
So, what I would like to know is: why is there no cell phone specifically designed for home use? If the cellphone companies want us to get rid of landlines why have they not designed phones that can actually be used in a home environment?
I was a sucker for car phones: much better reception, easier to hold and work with than those tiny cellphones.
I want a 'stationary' cellphone for the house with an antenna on the roof for excellent reception so I don't have to use my tiny little cell phone.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
According to TFA, this is just a cordless phone, which means you would have to carry around both this handset as well as your regular cellphone unless you know you won't be out of range on a given day. You still have to pay for your landline. More appealing to me would be if somebody made a high performance tabletop cellphone (with external antenna) so I could ditch the landline altogether.
Nexsan Technologies SATA RAID
This is not a Samsung model. In fact it is made by several Chinese factories as fakes of Samsung, SENAO, etc. They normally use HAM radio frequencies or comercial VHF/UHF. Due to the fact that they are only certified in China it is illegal to use in most countries.
If you operate one of these devices in the U.S., and it operates on ANY frequency used by the military, government, business, or amateur radio, you will be hunted down and taken out--by the FCC.
The price of the unit may be cheaper than cell phone bills, but add on that $10,000 fine and seizure of the equipment and it gets real expensive real quick.
And in case you think you're safe because it's in an amateur band, you should note that amateur radio operators practice RDF (Radio Direction Finding) or "Foxhunting" for fun. They will hunt you down, and the FCC accepts evidence from licensed operators in cases against violators.
Jim
Please read these before buying/using these phones...
l m l
http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2002/DA-02-453A1.htm
http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2002/DA-02-2474A1.ht
4. On July 27, 2001, agents from the Miami Office visited Lightning's retail store located at 231 E. Flagler Street, Unit #1, Miami, Florida. The agents saw several long-range, cordless telephones on display at the store, including a Super Phone CT-9000, a Prolink CT-6000CID, and an Optima OP8810. A salesperson
offered to sell one of the units to the agents. The long-range cordless telephones displayed at the store were capable of causing serious interference to aviation communications and were
not approved6 by the Commission for use in the United States.
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
And just in time, as well.
Some guy invented magnetic paint.
Although not an intended purpose, I assume it will work just like anti-cellular wood panels.
And it might even free you from having to wear a tinfoil hat indoors.
I had a long-term girlfriend in High School that lived DIRECTLY across the street from me. Once in a while, we'd both pretend to be sick to stay home from school, and then proceed to basically have sex all day while both our sets of parents were at work...
Now, the POINT is that I would take our crappy early-90s portable phone across the street with me to her house, and with the basestation properly set up in my house, when my Mom called to check up on me (because I was 'untrustworthy'...ha!), I'd be there...good times.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I looked a bit farther on the site and found a spec page for the phones. It says they run in the 240-450Mhz range. And it says the transmit power is 1500mA??? That would mean the unit would be in UHF channels and something in the order of 30x more transmit power then the typical "legal" non-licensed deviced in that band. (correct me if I'm wrong on the 30x more powerful part but it's certainly alot more powerful than your typical comsumer or even pro-sumer wireless gear in that range)
I'm not certain, but in Mexico these things are probably legal. Mexico has much higher caps on max transmit power for certain things.
There is no way, even if this works for 30 miles, and they fix interference problems, and it is declared safe for use; there is no way the cell phone companies will alow people to own them. They will use thier lobbys to outlaw cordless phones with a long range. If my phone worked 30 miles from the home, I would not need my cell phone. Cell phone companies will do the same thing telcom companies do, when they lobby to make it illegal for small towns to provide free internet access. Life is all about money, and the big corporations will not allow for anyone to take away from their profits.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
It's a cordless phone. An extremely powerful one, but still just a cordless phone. The basestation isn't a "cell tower" just because it's big.
Every time this has has happened (CB, FRS) the community as a whole demonstrates they are vulgar, abusive, ignorant idiots. Seriously go into any major city and listen to CB or FRS traffic and ask yourself if this is what you want more of.
And Amateur radio spectrum is an international thing, not FCC mandated. The ITU controls it and as far as I can tell there has been no push to remove it. Probably because it routinely proves to be an useful service in emergencies.
Folks, read the last entry at
1 ~m ode=flat~days=9999~start=20
http://www2.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1241943
These phones are illegally transmitting on liscensed bands and are not legal in the USA. The handset transmitter is in the Aircraft band 230mhz. Base unit is in private liscensed 450+ mhz band.
Become a Technician HAM operator and do it legally.
I've setup a legal long range cordless alternative to the Samsung using Yaesu dual band (2meter - 144mhz and 70cm - 430mhz) base and handheld radios with a full duplex autopatch. In the SF-Bay Area, I use a discontinued Yaesu FT-8500 mobile for base and FT-51R handhelds, a Connect Systems Inc C800 Full Duplex Autopatch and a Diamond high gain dual band base antenna. With the base antenna mounted at the top of a hill on a tower with no hills in between, 30 miles or more is common.
The bottom line is these cordless phones are transmitting on bands which will cause interference and possible FCC and other legal actions. PLEASE DON'T TRANSMIT ON ILLEGAL FREQUENCIES.
Skype anyone?
Yes, I know the phone as currenly configured violates FCC regulations and a bunch of Ham Radio enthusiasts would hunt me down and kill me if I used one.
However, if one was configured to work within FCC standards, paired with VOIP and a PBX this would be a godsend for a lot of companies and universities that have employees that are far-flung and travel a lot.
My company has a campus with 5,000 employees served by a large number of desktop support technicians weilding pagers and cell phones. With devices like this, the technicians could call each other or anyone in the company over the radio waves for free instead of using cell phones.
I imagine such an application would face strong resistance from the cellular providers, who would resist in the form of dollars into the campaign accounts of politicians responsible for oversight of the FCC.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
Something that I find surprising in some slashdotters is the fascination for wireless technology. Charming as it is, wireless is just another type of technology having its own benefits and hurdles. In general it is not the 'being wireless' part that is difficult: transmitters have existed for over 100 years.
I understand other people's fascination, but anyone can have his own transmitter, given that you can pass the HAM exam (if not you shouldn't be fooling around with wireless equipment anyway). Wireless links can be bought almost off-the-shelf.
IMHO the communication scheme itself is a lot more difficult. This can be understood easily by looking at the evolution of wireline modems: they started at 150 (or so) bps and worked their way up to 33kbps (higher rates use special tricks). All the time the medium remained the same, only progress was in the digital layers. For the same reason, I don't think it is fair to say 'wireless problem solved, halfway there'.
Just my 2ct...
Your TV can't cause interferance, and you have to accept what interferance your TV picks up, but he/she is a licensed user of that spectrum and you're not.
He's got all the rights and you've got none.
Just installed a Wilson Electronics cell phone amplier http://wilsonelectronics.com/amps/wcamps.htm for a customer that has really sucky service inside his steel office building. An external antenna brings the signal into an amplifier. Inside cell phone connect to a small ceiling mounted antenna. See images of the install here: http://www.stoneflytech.com/gallery/Cellular-Wirel ess-Amplifier-82
Someone has a great post on: http://www2.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12419431~m ode=flat~days=9999~start=20
The phones are shipped from the Philipines and are 220v. They are OEM models and not at all intended for the US market... for good reason. The poster dgc3154, checked the actual frequencies and they are transmitting - base at 450 Mhz (Private frequencies - FCC violation) and the phones at 230MHz (Aircraft frequencies - big FCC violation)
They do supposedly work as advertised. The poster was able to use them at over 10 miles on an improper mount with excellent quality and full Caller ID data.
This would be great if you were in an area where the said frequencies were unregulated. Given that we're in the US, it might be ... uh... better buy a cell phone and not have the FCC knocking on your door category.
Finally, bait for my HAM Radio Enthusiasts trap.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
5 years from now, we'll be reading up on how these things produce F.L.K.'s (Funny Looking Kids).
-Lokatana
The language about their lack of a license sounds as if "you're damned if you don't", but what it actually says is that they have a history of non- compliance because there was no license for the device found in their posession.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
All kinds of people make portable VOIP phones, you just connect to your VOIP-enabled router or tunnel to a PC. Cisco, for starters, at the high-end:
s 37 9/ps5056/index.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/phones/p
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
This device, if it is the one I have heard about, is not legal. And in fact, the FCC has bee ntriangulating any calls that are picked up on its frequencies which are in the HF band [allowing it to travel so far]. It has been heard in airplanes and across cities and is cause for alarm not only for the FCC, but the military which has frequencies around there, amateur radio operators, aviators, and more. I know the device was imported from asia, thus Samsung could fit the bill. All in all, I would not advise buying this without checking to see if it is legit, because the FCC will come knocking sooner or later and people, not only the FCC, are helping trianglulated these types of devices. Otherwise, it would be a great idea, but it causes interference and is not very helpful to most of us...
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
Why not get a ham license?
* Can't conduct "business" on a ham radio. My cellphone can, as can the BRS-licensed system I use at work.
* Autopatch calls aren't private and piss off everybody. Nobody cares if I use my cellphone while copying a honey-do list of stuff to get at the store.
* Range. My mobile rig reaches 20 miles. My cellphone doesn't have to.
* Callsigns. I really would hate having to mention my KG4--- callsign every so often during every cell call. Really would ruin those hot conversations.
Ham radio is fun for what it is, but it's not going to replace other forms of radio communication i.e. cellphones, FRS, etc.. nor should it. If everybody making casual cell calls suddenly went out and got tech tickets, the hams would have strokes about too many people on the air.
BTW, the gadget mentioned in this article is illegal in the USA. Having a ham ticket would not allow anyone to operate this thing, and in fact, if you had a licence, you'd get worse punishment because hams are supposed to KNOW the laws and act accordingly.
signed, a generic KG4---
Sig for hire.