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125-Mile WiFi Connection

Posted by timothy on from the beats-out-chinese-cookware dept.

Jason Striegel writes "Team iFibre Redwire smashed the WiFi distance record, successfully linking a distance of over 125 miles at this year's DefCon WiFi Shootout. They maintained a full 11Mbit unamplified connection for 3 hours using Z-com 300mw PCMCIA cards, surplus satellite dishes, Linux, and a great deal of hacker ingenuity. The best part: yesterday afternoon they said that they expect this rig would work at distances of over 300 miles. Here's additional team info, a couple pictures of one of their rigs, and some more technical details." I still wish I could find truly out-of-the-box Linux-friendly USB adapters, so I could get some tiny fraction of this distance, cheap.

3 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. 300 Miles? Not gonna happen by Bad_Feeling · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is just no way they can maintain 300 miles/480km without using relay stations. Multi megawatt FM stations cannot get that range simply because the curvature of the earth causes the signal to disappear into space before reaching its destination. 125/200km is about the maximum range that is possible on frequencies much higher than HF, even with captain picard's private satellite link to france they are not going to get 480km out of it.

    --
    Disclaimer: On the other hand, I am kind of a psycho...
  2. Re:Working at 300 miles? by strider44 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Going from the top of one mountain to the top of another.

  3. 125 Miles tropospheric propagation by kalevi · · Score: 4, Informative

    All communication for longer distances than so called line of sight communication is due to tropospheric propagation.

    In summertime it is very common in areas of extreme high pressure condiftions. Today it might work just fine, tomorrowe no connection.

    Best of luck with your experments!

    Kalevi Nyman
    SM0NTE
    ---