The 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.11b distance record of 110 km set by Interline earlier this year. (See the Sept. 29 RF Report) has been broken by a team from Weber State University's College of Applied Science and Technology Telecommunication and Business Education department in Ogden, Utah. The new record, 82 miles or 132 km, was over a line of sight path from ATK Thiokol at Promontory, west of Ogden, to a parking lot at Draper, Utah.
The precise locations, setup, test procedures and equipment used are described on the Project Information web page. The antennas were two Primestar 2.4 dishes with biquad feeds. Information on building the feed is posted on Trevor Marshall's Biquad feed for Primestar dish page. The radios were Cisco AIR-LMC352 PCMCIA cards in laptops with a 1.5 watt bidirectional amplifiers from Fleeman, Anderson & Bird. Link speed was 1 Mbps.
In addition to the project information, photos and lessons learned (including "Unsure of FCC regulations" -- legal for Amateur Radio use, may not be legal for commercial use) are linked to from the Weber State University Wireless Home Page.
The Trevor Marshall PhD - High Technology Demystified page has a wealth of information on IEEE 802.11b/g antennas, including construction details on slotted waveguide antennas and excellent descriptions on how they work. The Biquad feed for Primestar dish page also shows how to use the biquad feed as an antenna by itself and how to modify it for use on the PCS 1.9 GHz frequencies. Check it out!
