DEFCON WiFi Shootout Winners Set A Land Record 161
bscience writes "While attending the DEFCON 12 convention this past weekend I had the chance to see the standing ovation a group of 19 year olds received for establishing a 55.1 mile unamplified WiFi connection!" A snippet from the Wired story linked there: "Mobile warriors having trouble making a wireless connection across the hall might want to give some Ohio teens a call. This weekend they were able to make a 55-mile Wi-Fi connection. ... They might have achieved an even greater distance, Justin Rigling said, "but there was no road left."" (Here's the post from a few weeks back about the competition.)
No really. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe these competitions could open up a second record of the largest diameter of coverage achieved. Maybe measured at four opposite points.
Re:No really. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No really. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No really. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No really. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm seeing similar results with my new Averatec 3220. It's even better than my D-Link DWL-650+ card, which was previously the best I'd found. Having it on depletes battery life quite a bit faster though.
Now if I can just get Linux working on the damn Averatec...
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Anyone any advice on increasing my radius ?
Re:No really. (Score:1)
That's if the problem is with the powerbook. How well do other notebooks see the basestation?
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Re:No really. (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Airport Extreme, the Broadcom PC cards will work under OS X using the Apple driver; you'll wind up with a card sticking out of your TiBook, but you'll get 802.11g and probably better range as well. Worth a try.
The cheap thing to try (er, free
Re: extend tiBook airport range (Score:2)
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Re:No really. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No really. (Score:4, Interesting)
Installing Sveasoft, OpenWRT, or WiFi box firmware allows you to boost the signal to 84mw. I've read to avoid the full 84mw, as it can damage hardware in extended use, but I've also read that this is still in the legal range for the device... even wireless A indoor/outdoor is 250mW. [dslreports.com] (and I think g is up to 4W).
Re:No really. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have not RTFA, however if I remember last years competition right, the competing antennas were on the side of a large hill or mountain pointing down at a vehicle that was driving away. In such a case they have far fewer obstacles then you do in your home.
Re:No really. (Score:5, Informative)
Not counting the ability to use amplifiers, you could think of wifi coverage as light... put a 100w lightbulb in a field at night and how far away can you be and stil read a book? Not very far probably... 30 feet maybe. Now, take that bulb and put it in a parabolic lens. Now you've got a 100w flashlight. If the flashlight is pointed your way, you'll get hundreds of feet. The better the lens and the sharper the focus, the greater your range. Come up with a more fundamental improvement (like a 100w laser?) and your range increases to a radical distance that could easily be miles. But it still doesn't help the guy standing 5 feet off to the side of the light though, he's in the dark.
Directional and omnidirectional coverage are for totally different purposes, and really can't be compared or mixed. There's no use in complaining about your omni coverage when people are making improvements in directional coverage - it's apples and oranges.
Re:No really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No really. (Score:5, Insightful)
rule 1 - make it central to the house. If you use it mostly in your den at the south end of the house then the AP will be in the celing, about 6 feet from the office in the hallway. if your home is larger, buying a pair of low end aftermarket antennas and spreading out the antennas makes a bigger difference. In one home i had the AP in the kitchen, 1 antenna 6 feet from that location and th eother 3 feet in the opposite direction. Adding a 1 foot square piece of sheet metal about 1 wavelength away from the antenna in the direction of the outside wall will also help in two ways. 1 to limit the external radiation to the neighbors. (the best wireless security is to be sure they cant get a signal) and 2 to reflect the signal back to the working area.
I have covered houses of 4000 sq feet with 1 AP and 2 comp-usa grade add-on antennas. no you will not get 100% in all areas of the home, but you will not drop below 40% and some places like the bottom of the closet in the basement guest bedroom do not need woreless coverage.
being realistic about wireless coverage is the first step. the second step is to use the 802.11 repeaters when you only absolutely have to.
but in a home for rich people... multiple AP'
s are not a viable option as it doesn't hand off seamlessly.
Re:No really. (Score:3, Informative)
but in a home for rich people... multiple AP'
s are not a viable option as it doesn't hand off seamlessly.
There are some that do, model numbers escape me. Or it might be the card and software that automatically switches APs to the best one.
Not that I think it is necessary. I was able to get a pretty good 11Mbps (i.e. plenty good for internet) link where the AP is in the far corner of the basement and I was on the second floor. I think it would take a pretty huge house, or maybe one with concrete/stone
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Wifi IS GHz (Score:1)
What do you mean exactly, as you probably know Wifi IS GHz (2.4)? This is rather at the end of the range where it is interesting to build non-dish based antennas. At low frequencies, the structures tend to get very big (~wavelength, of course), and at higher freqs, construction tolerances kill you...
Z
Re:Wifi IS GHz (Score:3, Informative)
I want to play with http://www.rangeextender.com/224pagransy.html [rangeextender.com] if I get the time someday. 24 DBI gain. I've recommended it to some of our customers, several of whom have bought one, and so far, everybody is quite pleased with them. One of these on one end (and a regul
Re:No really. (Score:2)
At least approximately so, of course.
The only way you can boost the range of a radio system (assuming the receiver to be limited by thermal noise rather than things which can be fixed) is to boost either the transmitter power, or the antenna gain at one or both ends of the link. That you do by making them directional.
Now this is an excellent achievement, and has obvious and immedate application for those who live in
Re:No really. (Score:2)
You need to think of radio like light (albeit light that can go through non-metallic objects a bit). Your APs put out under 1 watt, like a candle.
These guys who went 50 miles were using the equivalent of a large telescope, viewing a star that is too dim to be seen by the naked eye.
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Even an omni dipole has "lobes". And they're different depending on the axis you're viewing.
Reference: http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/anten n a_patterns.htm [rfcafe.com]
Re:No really. (Score:2)
Re:No really. (Score:1)
You might gain a greater radius of coverage if you put an AP high in the house. And hang some metal around the edges of the attic so the signal can be reflected down into the rooms.
Or hang your AP under a balloon, in the center of a parabolic antenna aimed down at your house.
Re:No really. (Score:1)
Re:No really. (Score:2)
I live in a place in Northern California where I could easily beat their record. With a mountain that rises 3000 ft. off of the valley floor and the shape of the main valley of California
Customers freaking out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Customers freaking out... (Score:3, Funny)
I'd probably phreak out too.
Re:Customers freaking out... (Score:2)
They don't read slashdot.
They also don't care about security. Their IT people keep telling them not to install wide-open access points, and not to let random visitors plug in laptops, but they do it anyway.
Re:Customers freaking out... (Score:2)
Oy, with a dish like that I'm suprised they don't pick up EM leakage from wired networking...
Hawking their equipment? (Score:5, Funny)
Some good old hacking spirit right there...
Re:Hawking their equipment? (Score:1)
Re:Hawking their equipment? (Score:2, Informative)
[google] define:hawk
The verb "hawk" has 3 senses in WordNet.
1. peddle, monger, huckster, hawk, vend, pitch -- (sell or offer for sale from place to place)
whereas "hock" though I would have given you it, appears to have a different meaning
The verb "hock" has 2 senses in WordNet.
1. pawn, soak, hock -- (leave as a guarantee in return for money; "pawn your grandfather's gold watch")
However, this mistake is as nothing to those who type "loose" when they me
Re:Hawking their equipment? (Score:2)
Re:Hawking their equipment? (Score:2)
Transfer speed (Score:5, Interesting)
Help for rural areas? (Score:5, Interesting)
If that is the case, their technology could be implemented in limited population density areas, tying back to the somewhat larger urban areas.
Take for example Iowa. There are many areas over 30 miles from any town larger than 15-30k.
Surprisingly enough, these 'large' towns have cable/phone (DSL) access.
So now the remote areas can be wifi attached to the bigger towns/cities and get the faster access (although 11b is not screaming it is better than modem).
Re:Help for rural areas? (Score:2, Interesting)
Assuming you could actually get 11mbps over that distance, that would be screaming compared to most cable or DSL access. The fastest DSL available in the city of 100k I live in is 6mbps downstream and 1.5mbps upstream.
Re:Help for rural areas? (Score:1)
I live in a small town in Iowa of 1300 people and I have 1Mb x 128k ADSL for $40 month.
Good idea for areas not wired though.
Re:Help for rural areas? (Score:1)
Re:Help for rural areas? (Score:1)
Infact, the entire city of Ames, Iowa is covered with wireless access through this type of setup.
Reception enhancing device (Score:1)
Seriously, at what stage does Planetary alignment, Solar Flares or wind direction start to have a bigger effect than technology??
I did quite a few Elec Eng subjects as part of my degree, and this stuff seems mind boggling.
Re:Reception enhancing device (Score:1, Informative)
the horror! (Score:1, Funny)
that's just a tragedy.
Congrats to these kids (Score:5, Insightful)
For those who do not know, this contest was held in (and around) Vegas, when it was 110+ outside. These guys were dragging equipment up the side of a mountain to get this link. For those who would give these kids sh**, try dragging a 10ft dish(3.048 meters for you metric weenies) several hundred feet up a mountain, and then getting them aligned 55 miles apart, all in 110+f(43c) weather. There was no big 4x4's, they drove dads busted-a** minivan from Ohio for this. Sure, NASA could probably do better, but come'on, this was an amateur thing, and just something cool to do. No big prizes (they won like a couple-hundred bucks in Best Buy gift certs, and some gear).
If I had a had on, it would be off to these kids for some ingenuity and determination.
Re:Congrats to these kids (Score:1)
If I had a haT on, it would be off to these kids for some ingenuity and determination.
Re:Congrats to these kids (Score:3, Informative)
The also got oodles of wireless goodies.
Re:Congrats to these kids (Score:2, Interesting)
I was blown away by these guys too. It was most impressive because they had the stuff lying around, made a decision to enter and did it. Despite parents objections they made the trip and got a standing ovation and a heap of well earned praise.
They did'nt brute force it by just adding more power (they said they were only at about 600mw), they just sat down and did the m
I'm in Ohio, and Miles are it... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm in Ohio, and Miles are it... (Score:2)
Yep... I'm a Cincinnati native...
200mW Engenius cards (Score:1, Interesting)
http://keenansystems.com/store/engenius_senao_200
Re:200mW Engenius cards (Score:2, Informative)
Tropospheric ducting (Score:4, Informative)
While this would be great for setting communication record, it would not allow for long-term reliable communication.
Dan East
Re:Tropospheric ducting (Score:1)
Partial sponsor (Score:5, Funny)
Wired magazine helped sponsor the contest.
What's the word? Irony? Misnomer?
Re:Partial sponsor (Score:1, Flamebait)
By "off" I mean the opposite of appropriate, suitable, befitting or apt.
Interesting Guys (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they all went to St. Xavier [jesuits-chi.org], a pretty well respected (in both athletics and academics) prep school.
Here's a picture [huddlestons.com] of Ben when he was a junior, winning a theater award for sound production.
Meng's got a website here [qsl.net] that's a bit outdated, but considering the projects were from his junior year in high school, rather impressive. Seems he was a HAM radio guy.
Running out of time, the first link I found for Justin Rigling was this link [aksteel.com]. One more connection to the guy, since I use to work for AK Steel. The little blurb about the scholarship does make him sound like a stereotypical geek (JETS, Science Olympiad, Robotics, Math, and Photography clubs, etc etc). A bit of a contrast to his sister [aksteel.com]. Not exactly what you'd expect from the son of a steelmaker . .
Okay, enough being a stalker . . .
Satellite Dishes and FCC Rules (Score:1)
Here's another one. http://www5.cs.cornell.edu/~eckstrom/802.11a/prime star/ [cornell.edu]
As the first article notes, there are some FCC rules about antenna use within the US. Would the Defcon product be within these limits? The Wired article didn't seem to say.
Re:Satellite Dishes and FCC Rules (Score:2)
Anybody hacking lasers? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anybody hacking lasers? (Score:2)
I know that commercially, there are systems like AirFiber that use lasers...
The biggest problems with lasers is that they really don't shoot very far, unless you can get them into watt range (not milliwatt) - and those aren't cheap. I think with a standard red laser pointer, and some good optics and alignment, you might be able to get a few km distance - but not much more (and alignment wil
Re:Anybody hacking lasers? (Score:2)
Ham record is 82 mi (Score:2, Informative)
"Amateurs complete 82-mile two-way DSSS link on 2.4 GHz: ARRL High Speed Multimedia (HSMM) Working Group member Ken Cuddeback, NT7K, reports that his students at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, recently completed two-way direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) communication on 2.4 GHz over a distance of 82 miles. The WSU students--which include one ham, Brandon Checketts, KG4NZV, and several prospective licensees--broke the current
Re:A snippet (Score:5, Interesting)
does that mean that the connection wasn't actually established unamplified... merely maintained?
Re:A snippet (Score:2)
Re:A snippet (Score:5, Informative)
-
Re:A snippet (Score:2)
Re:A snippet (Score:3, Insightful)
> wasn't the amplified distance longer than the non?
As the article and summary pointed out, they ran out of road.
And yes, the unamplified distance was merely to maintain the connection and not establish it.
Either way, impressive.. especially as they would have likely gone farther if they had a good place to go to.
Re:A snippet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A snippet (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I would guess it's because it's a competition held in the US. If you told someone there how many feet, yards, or meters it was then most people wouldn't really get how far that distance really it.
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
Actually, Metric is the standard in the US since President Gerald R. Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975. However, conversion to metric was/is entirely voluntary (there used to be a 10 year deadline but it got dropped) so no-one actually switched.
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 established the U.S. Metric Board to coordinate and plan the increasing use and voluntary conversion to the metric system. However, the Act was devoid of any target dates for metric conversion. In 1982 President Ronal
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I suppose you'd say that in Europe someone needs to cut a pie into ten e
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I never said the US stock exchanges going to decimal had anything to do with metric. It is just an example of how long it takes for the US institutions (government or otherwise) to switch from an old arcaic standard to a more modern one that is in line with the rest of the planet. Pieces of Eight are so pirate... and we all know zombies are the new pirate.
I suppose you'd say that in Europe someone needs to cut a pie into ten equal slices? Get real.
The real has
Actually, the US is a "metric" country (Score:2)
There was a funny NRP article back in the 1980s about the non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the US going metric.
They had to explain, of course. It seems that the US, like most countries, has never actually had a legally-enforced standard system of measurements. Rather, there is a government bureau (whose name has changed several times) that defines official meanings to units of
Re:Actually, the US is a "metric" country (Score:2)
Re:Actually, the US is a "metric" country (Score:2)
(In this case, I learned that the US system of measurements is even more demented than I'd thought.
There are also those "fishermen's rulers" that you see in sporting-good stores. I wonder if NIST has officially defined any of them
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
1 mile = 1.609344 kilometers per Google.
They really should have reported it as 440.8 furlongs.
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1)
55.1 miles = 48488 fathom
1 fathom = 6 feet
Google is great for mathmatical conversions!
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:5, Interesting)
Regarding your point about doing without metric, note that virtually all building materials come in imperial sizes. There is no need to know metric units in that environment.
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1)
That building materials come in imperial sizes is just a convention. In Europe t
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I agree that it is a superior system for scientific applications, and I believe it a standard system in use by scientists, even in the US. However, we have a case of optimizing the most common case here; I think it makes sense to use whatever system of measur
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:1, Flamebait)
It just seems eas
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
Except that a carpentry inch isn't an inch.
Unless "true dimensions" are called out, a 2x4, for example, is 1.5x3.5 inches. Strictly speaking,at least back when I was in Jr High shop, lumber measurements were +0,-0.5 inch to account for shrinkage as the wood dried after being cut.
Anyway, the point is that you may think you
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
Various mathematicians have explained why it would be so much better if we would switch to duodecimal (base 12) for all calculations. Somehow, I doubt if it will ever happen.
Another funny thing is that some linguists and historians have argued that there was a competition between bases 10 and 12 in Europe around 2000 years ago. It seems that there are a lot of Roman writings in which
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I think the subdivision of a foot into 12 inches is fantastic; it allows one to easily divide dimensions into thirds, something that's a PITA in the metric world.
Yeah, because if I have a 25.4 cm board and I want thirds, it works out to a messy 8.46666... cm
But with imperial, that's a 10 inch board that so easily splits into pieces that are 3.3333... inches!
Fantastic! No, wait, the other thing. Moronic.
Re:Metrics is a Milestone away (Score:2)
I'd be fine with it if all imperial measurements were base-12, but it's the inconsistency between units that is why I don't like it.
it allows one to easily divide dimensions into thirds, something that's a PITA in the metric world
To be more accurate, you can't divide powers of ten by three. A third of 12cm is 4cm. A third of 10in is 3.333333 recurring inc
Re:It's a fraud... (Score:1, Funny)
Read thre article instead of sounding like a turets victim spouting stupidity from your face.
Fresnel means nothing in directed DISH communications.. they had approximately 200db of gain at BOTH ENDS plus there was a tiny issue of BEING ON A FRICKING MOUNTIAN for the Z end.
wow, your immense stupidity is blinding... The stupidness field you are generating is destorying the minds that are around you.
Re:It's a fraud... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's a fraud... (Score:2)
Did the team come up with different numbers? Perhaps the terrain has a significant elevation change?