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New WiFi Link Distance Record
Espectr0 writes "A Venezuelan professor along with his team have set a new record for the longest WiFi link. Using commodity hardware, they established a connection between a PC in El Águila, Venezuela, and one in Platillón Mountain, a distance of about 237 miles. The previous record was 193 miles. Slides [PDF] are also available."
Using a directed wireless transmission is certainly far cheaper in such remote regions. Think of the equivalent cost of building and maintaining 250 miles of land line!
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Neither, if you read the PDF about the experiment, you'll see the aim is to discover whether stock equipment can be used to connect remote areas to the Internet. Connecting people in rural locations is a challenge being faced in many countries, others have different solutions.
Really, I consider myself a bit of a leftie and I'd like to see Mugabe slung out of power as much as any Tory would. Comparing Mugabe to the liberal left is like comparing Karl Marx with Ronald McDonald: pointless and stupid.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
A friend of mine who's a military history buff told me a story about Soviet fighter aircraft in the 70s and 80s. Seems they had very powerful look-down, shoot-down radars and pilots were instructed to turn them off during take off and landing. Apparently sometimes they forgot, and runway maintenance crews had to regularly pick up the carcasses of rabbits, birds and other unlucky critters that were in the area when those MiGs went on missions.
That's what we engineers would call "complete cobblers". The power intensity required to cook anything is remarkably high, and requires some time - your microwave oven takes some minutes before the "ding". Also, the frequency at which a microwave oven cooks is chosen because it resonates water molecules. The last thing you want is radar that can't "see" through clouds!