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News The Wind-Powered Wi-Fi Repeater

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 22 Jul 2010.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. tozsam

    tozsam What's a Dremel?

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    what about being built into a car design, the motion of the car would provide more than enough wind power. The amount of times I've been using my iphone satnav only to loose connection in the middle of nowhere, then when the connection finally comes back you hear the 'do a legal u-turn' and find out you have gone several miles in the wrong direction.
     
  3. jezmck

    jezmck Minimodder

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    tozsam, that would be inefficient, you're in a car with a battery and an engine.
    What you need is just an antenna on the roof.
     
  4. Xen0phobiak

    Xen0phobiak SMEGHEADS!

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    Just use a GPS based satnav tozsam, problem solved.
     
  5. scawp

    scawp What's a Dremel?

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    Great stuff, might need a few of them but anything is better than WiMAX
     
  6. HourBeforeDawn

    HourBeforeDawn a.k.a KazeModz

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    not a bad idea, the sooner we start moving off of fossil fuels the better for us in the long run.
     
  7. aoakley

    aoakley FriesWithStatic

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    That's brilliant... so long as your value of "middle of nowhere" never exceeds "a third of mile from somewhere else that *has* got an Internet connection".

    Um..?
     
  8. WestHej

    WestHej What's a Dremel?

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    Whats the latency like on this?
     
  9. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    pretty cool but is only really useful in a field with a line of sight to the actual hot spot
     
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    They only *tested* it to .3 of a mile - standard Wi-Fi equipment with custom antennas has been known to reach multiple miles quite easily.

    Plus, it'd be easy to combine this with mesh networking technology like LocustWorld: that way it only has to be near another non-Internet-connected Wi-Fi mesh node, which in turn is near another, and so on - until you eventually reach the one node in the village which *does* have an Internet connection.
     
  11. -EVRE-

    -EVRE- What's a Dremel?

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    Been doing this for years... but you would be surprised at how much power you need to generate for 100% up time and reliability. 200watt solar panel and 3kw of battery is needed to keep 4watts of radios running year round here in north Idaho.
     
  12. Anakha

    Anakha Minimodder

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    Not really. If you need connectivity further out, you put several repeaters up, so the signal is carried along by the repeaters until it reaches your internet base station(s). It would, essentially, become a mesh network. It's how most rural internet access is provided. A company pays for a hard line to somewhere, then sets up a wireless mesh to cover the village.
     
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