Aussies Put Old Pay-TV Dishes To Use -- As A LAN 159
Mr. Hardware continues: "Although not the best speeds, approximately 2Mbps with a 2.2ms round trip latency isn't too shabby when you consider the cost and implementation of this. Hell, you can even learn how to make a reciever dish at this site! So how is it powered? Linux of course! Check out www.air.net.au for more info."
Check out the mailing list archives to see how much progress they've made, too -- perhaps some friendly (and entrepreneurial) Slashdot reader can hook a few Canberrans up with wireless cards for cheaper than they can get them down there?
Re:Necessary to mention Linux (Score:1)
I don't think they're using the satellite (Score:1)
John
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
In fact, if you read their site, they are using home-made and other types of antennas as well.
Why bother with wireless?? (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Still, I can't quite see myself drinking Crownies out of a blue can..
Re: (Score:1)
SeattleWireless (Score:1)
They are using the canberra plans to make helical antennae and set up a city-wide wireless network.
for free
Re:2.4 GHZ Internet access does exist in my Apt!!! (Score:1)
Re:Why bother with wireless?? (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Another great one is J.Boags & Sons Premium...
Funnily enough, both are Tasmania... Must be the clean fresh water we have down here!
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
I think you may be confusing the two Galaxy dishes. The genuine satellite service used a solid, offset parabolic dish (so that the feedhorn doesn't obstruct the dish), which was pointed at one of the Aussat satellites (IIRC.) The microwave service used a wire mesh "dish" pointed at a base station. The article refers to "Galaxy TV antennas" which sounds more like the microwave antenna.
Just south of Sydney? (Score:2)
Just south of Sydney is.....Wollongong!
I haven't been to the 'gong for a while, but it most definetely is not our nations captial! I thought Canberra was mostly west from Sydney. Where's my map...
Nitpick: *sigh* The only place here in Oz that most people know about is the now cliched "Sydney, Australia". Canberra would be better described as "central NSW, where it's bloody cold and only fat-cat pollie's want to stay" :)
...yes, and with cows... (Score:1)
Wait until you see what the ABA and ACA say... (Score:1)
The Government here regards spectrum as its own asset not as a community asset to be regulated for the benefit of all.
They charge BIG dollars for the right to do this kind of thing in "THEIR" spectrum.
It sucks but thats how the system works.
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:2)
There was an article at technocrat.net about it, but the search seems to be down so can't find it now, also possibly it was posted on /.?
Nice if someone could set up a group/site/thing to coordinate things a bit more, save running into IP conflicts (quite a few seem to be going for IPV6) if they get linked together (even if only tunneled through the internet) and to get some linking going of cos :).
I think the 11th commandment applies here (Score:1)
And with satellite dishes (which transmit directionally), this isn't even too hard to accomplish.
Unless someone is that stupid to point his antenna directly at some feds, they won't receive the signal, and everything is fine.
I guess something like that could even be used as some semisecure, because listening in ("wire"-tapping) is kinda impossible if you're not exactly between the sending and the receiving antenna.
Irridium? (Score:1)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
Other Dishes? (Score:2)
This could be a good way for people in the country to get higher speed net access. If you can find a near-by friend with high-speed access that is.
England? Scotland maybe? (Score:1)
"The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain."
or something like that.
Sounds like.. (Score:3)
Sounds cool, right? Might want to check local regulations for the 2.4Ghz ISM band. You can only have so much gain for so much power... if you try this in the US you might be violating FCC.
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
Re:They would say "no" and fine you (Score:1)
Those bloody snakes get everywhere don't they :)
Re:"Canberrans"? (Score:1)
While we are firm and juicy, we only turn red when we get too much sun.
Re:Airlink (Score:1)
I asked Tellus and they basically said:
"The phone lines in that area are so crappy, Its
a wonder that your phone even works."
So I went and got cable. and with 200kbps average
I'm happy. (sometimes up to 300kbps)
"Canberrans"? (Score:2)
--
Re:You forgot BSB (Score:1)
As for the dishes, haven't been recently, but I'd guess the old non digital ones are probably being given away at most of the auctions in the country.
*mirroring stuff like DVD decryption software maybe* and of course now with all this censorware and government pressure pr0n is under threat at well, should get mirroring all you can find right now, umm for political purposes of course...
Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
Why dosn't the government actually do this (Score:1)
Re:I think the 11th commandment applies here (Score:1)
I think the cat is out of the bag and if there is a problem it will soon become apparent.
I wonder what the FCC would say... (Score:2)
(Just thinking out loud...)
/ k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films [hypermart.net] /
That's really unfair (Score:1)
YES! Satellite TV Piracy is coming back! (Score:2)
FCC rules on 2.4 Ghz (Score:3)
There's an EETimes article about it here [eetimes.com]. To sum up:
This mostly concerns the battle between HomeRF and 802.11, but does give some good info.
Re:Runs on Linux (Score:1)
I prefer wireless linux-driven network information over the repetitive mega-cool/atari-handheld stuff.
Gee, Slashdot posting things that are not incredibly interesting for every single reader?
Wah.
The Slashdot guys do a decent job of getting interesting stuff - no filter is perfect.
cat Flame.didntmeanto >
Ok, so some filters are perfect.
Re:Runs on Linux (Score:1)
ummm.. id want THAT posted....
simple.
./vanguard
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:2)
Directional antennas will let you go quite some distance with standard 2.4Ghz stuff, still within regulations. We've set up some 18 and 19 km links using yagi and sectoral antennas. Of course, caluclations were done to make sure we didn't exceed the acceptable limits.
Radio Modems (Score:1)
1) what happed to them
2) could a radio modem be hocked up to a wireless eithernet device
3) is that what these people have done? Or are they using the dishes as point to point microwave transmiters
Casue I am a little confused here.
Aussie Pr0n! (Score:1)
I did lots of research into this while in college.
I sure wish they set up a short-wave version of this system, so I could continue my research here in the States.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
Hmmm (Score:1)
Airlink (Score:1)
Allocating by class C chunks? (Score:1)
But isn't this kind of thing what gave Fidonet such growing pains? The original Fidonet address spec was two 16 bit integers, but then they had to add zones in front, and they wanted non-dialable client nodes, so points were tacked to the end. Some software never properly supported zones, much less points. (And some TCP/IP software still doesn't support variable length bit masks either.) At least with a full class C per site, they don't have to worry about the "point problem".
Not just canberra (Score:1)
go to http://www.adelaide.air.net.au for news on our exploits or http://www.tas.air.net for tasmanian info. Melbourne doesnt have a site yet.
I live in Canberra (Score:1)
Gfunk
Re:Allocating by class C chunks? (Score:1)
Anyway, there's not even 250 people in the CLUG, let alone doing the WaveLAN thing, so this limit isn't as silly as it sounds. We're not worried about scalability since there's currently more than enough and if the limit is hit, then shock horror we can vi a file and use the 10.0.0.0 network instead. That's enough IP's for every man, woman, child, dog and refrigerator in the territory with room to spare (heck, 256^3 is almost enough for the population of the country).
The galaxy antennas have worked mostly well though some people have been having more luck with custom helicals (which is also good since the galaxy ones are rare, anyway it's more fun to build your own)
One big problem we have at the moment is between the north and south side is a fair bit of non-residential area (read: parks, public land, parliament house, etc) a wideish lake, and a mountain - which is making a north-south link impossible due to the short range of the cards. The guys north-side (the main instigators) have been having more luck as the terrain south-side messes with LOS more.
Anyway its a lot of fun and I encourage other people who like hacking and get bored with ethernet networks to get involved in something similar in your area. We've already got a splinter group iirc which are using a different card which has a longer range and more bandwidth, and works with modern hardware (the main problem with the wavelan cards imho - full-length 8-bit ISA)
--
Matt
Aussie beers (sort of off topic :) (Score:1)
Cascade is a good beer, as is anything by Coopers and James Boag. Unfortuantely, VB and XXXX do taste completely like piss.... Toohey's Old & and Toohey's New aren't too bad if you're stuck in Sydney, though.
The main reason VB sells so well in Victoria and XXXX in Queensland is saturation marketing of their home turf.
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Re:Not just canberra (Score:1)
"website coming back again soon..."
oh well...
All of Tasmania? That'd be nice.. but the place is 400km's from one corner to the other. At the moment it is focused on the biggest cities Hobart (mainly western shore) and Launceston.
And seeing as our site is so non-existant - please email the list at wireless@taslug.org.au, or look in IRC at irc.slashnet.org #vortex (and msg acb and call him a whore)
Re:I Thought Aussies Were Stupid (Score:1)
Look at Elle McPherson (sp?).
--Ben
Re:FCC rules on 2.4 Ghz (Score:2)
old Primestar dish? (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:2)
In fact most of the pubs in Sydney don't have it. Fosters was labeled as piss by Australians a long time ago, so they decided to spend a pretty penny on international marketing to get everyone else to drink it.
If you want a good Australian beer try Cascade Premium, and if you want the beer that we all drink get VB or XXXX. They won't win any competitions but they do the job, and don't completely taste like piss.
In regards to the wireless lan I am interested as too whether our FCC will nab them for it.
Cheers
Now where did I leave the keys to my kangaroo?
Re:They're already sort of doing this in the US (Score:1)
Re:FCC rules on 2.4 Ghz (Score:1)
What? I thought "as USA goes, as does the rest of the world!"?
Just kidding -- good point. Shoulda added that.
"lan"? (Score:1)
Re:Not just canberra (Score:1)
we are slowly working on getting the site back up.
The major problems we have at the moment are as Chuq says, the area to cover is massive - and capital here is minimal, so if anyone would like to donate to a good cause (hell, we'll even incorporate ourselves especially so you know you aren't being ripped off) then we'll love you for ever
FCC? (Score:1)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:2)
All that the air.net.au people are using are the now disused microwave antennas - they can often be collected free from people who used to have Galaxy. That makes a very cheap way of getting an ~18dBi antenna.
Re:This uses satellite DISHES people, not satellit (Score:2)
Re:Remote access (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:1)
My bad. I had Galaxy for six months before cancelling the service. I must have had the wire mesh microwave type because my "dish" (a tiny little thing) was aimed directly at Telstra Tower. I didn't realise there was a second type of Galaxy dish built for satellite reception.
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Kinda like the old joke: Why do they call it XXXX?
Because Queenslanders can't spell Beer. :)
Uhhh... (Score:2)
Re:Fosters... (Score:1)
Doesn't the statistic go that the top selling beer in London is Fosters?
I agree that no Australian in their right mind would drink Fosters. During the Olympics here in Sydney they had a massive marketing blitz - including a vain effort to boost sales - a buy-one-fosters-get-another-free promotion.
They couldn't even give the stuff away...
Still they had a half-decent ad campaign [ibelieve.com.au] during the olympics.
Another beer urban legend is that CUB [cub.com.au] introduced Melbourne Bitter into NSW after shifting the brewing of NSW-distro Victoria Bitter to Sydney. Seems everyone noticed the taste change when they stopped using water from the Yarra and used Sydney tap water instead... ie. Melbourne Bitter is the old VB brewed in Melbourne. Anyone confirm?
Dell's wireless solution (Score:2)
Is it is as good as Airport?
You forgot BSB (Score:1)
Re:Fosters... (Score:2)
Questions, questions, too many questions! (Score:4)
No, it's not illegal. The 2.4Ghz band is a public band, so it's not tightly regulated by the FCC. It's a real pain in the ass when you've got a whole bunch of people running in the frequency range in the same area though,... (Guess how I know this?)
Provided you could get a signal, you'd be able to connect to the network from anywhere. All you need is a wireless ethernet card, and the information on how to connect to the network. (I currently have two different wireless PCMCIA cards, and should be getting a third soon). An actual "dish" is not necessary.
"Rain Fade" isn't really an issue, unless you're talking HEAVY rain. Rain Fade is a lot more of a problem when you're actually going through the cloud cover (a-la Satellite). The wireless stuff they're doing doesn't work that way.
That about covers it. BTW, the company that I work for is getting into this technology REALLY heavy in the US. Especially since Cisco bought Aironet, which has a wirless system that communicates at 11Mbps. That's pretty damn fast for radio, people.
Re:They would say "no" and fine you (Score:2)
Re:no guys, not sattelite dishes (Score:2)
Don't forget (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:3)
You don't need an actual satellite. You just use satellite dishes. The dishes point at each other. They don't point into the skies. They're all pointing at somebody elses dish nearby.
The Galaxy "satellite" dishes didn't point at a satellite either. They pointed at a local transmission tower (Telstra Tower, or as all the locals call it, Black Mountain Tower).
Re:Fosters... (Score:2)
For Australians in the UK (such as myself), here's some happy news: VB distribution seems to be improving. It's imported from Oz, and Sainsburys is stocking it (at some stores in London, at any rate) at a reasonable price.
Woo!
The pubs i've seen it in seem to charge about £2.50 (~AUS$6.25) for a can...
...j
Re:Dell's wireless solution (Score:2)
It should also be interesting to see if I can get it to play nicely with Linux. I'll keep a Windows 98 partition around just in case.
Re:Dell's wireless solution (Score:2)
We're doing it in the UK (Score:2)
Re:This uses satellite DISHES people, not satellit (Score:3)
There's no real technical difference between the antenna a radio station uses to broadcast it's signal and the antenna on your car that you use to pick up that signal. The difference between a dish antenna and a linear antenna is that the dish is fairly directional whereas the linear antenna is omnidirectional.
Remote access (Score:2)
Besides, how cool would it be to be sitting in a restaurant with a satellite dish?
Runs on Linux (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:2)
Would be much cheaper to run digital lines (phone/cable), and then you wouldn't have to have a sat-dish.
But it's still cool, just doesn't make sense in somewhere like NYC.
Might work in rural areas though, they usually have sat-dishes already (for TV) and with the new dishes most places in hicksvilles have a large unused dish and a smaller one for TV.
Devil Ducky
Fosters... (Score:4)
An aussie voice with aussie accent: Local area network
A can of fosters smacking the floor...
An aussie voice with aussie accent: Beer... Fosters... Australian for beer.
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Is this even legal? (Score:2)
Does anyone with experiance in the aussie equivelent of the FCC have any insight into this?
Oh, and the link in the article should point to www.air.net.au [air.net.au].
Nope. (Score:2)
You can beam it into another user's satellite receiver, if he happens to be pointing at you (unlikely) or you're right off the edge of his dish (where most parabolic reflector antennas have a minor lobe.)
You'd have a tough time uplinking to the satellite. I understand the receivers are at a very different frequency from what the little piepans handle.
This uses satellite DISHES people, not satellites (Score:3)
The network described in the article uses WaveLAN cards connected to old dish antennas. You could do the same thing with just about any other parabolic antenna you might have access to (DirecTV, anyone?). At no time does the signal bounce off a satellite -- this is all line-of-sight between two or more ground-based nodes.
Please stop talking about Iridium or anything else in orbit. You are only making a fool of yourself by doing so.
Re:I wonder what the FCC would say... (Score:2)
And I would recomend that the hams leave this one alone. You see, if it takes a ham license to run the transmitter, then non-hams can't legally join the fun.
So, if someone wants to play with this, go read Part 15 of the FCC regulations ("License-free operation and frequencies") and do it there. Legally unlicensed and available to everyone who wants to play.
Canberra also has 51 Mbps Fiber To The Curb ! (Score:2)
2.4 GHZ Internet access does exist in my Apt!!! (Score:2)
At work we demo'd a point2point wireless installation between 2 buildings using 14dB Yagi directional antennae. Solid connection even without direct line of sight (a couple of buildings in the way).. Very impressed..
Now I just have to get a nice amplified omnidirecitonal antenna for my apt (and hack into the airport to solder the antenna connection
Your Working Boy,
Necessary to mention Linux (Score:4)
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:3)
2.4GHz is an ISM band(Industry, Science, Medical), so it gets used by microwaves, X-Ray machines, etc. It's not a licensed band, and is mostly kept open for noise generated by these devices.
We're sort of doing this in Lithuania (Score:2)
Academical and Research Network in Lithuania (LITNET) is widely using wavelan technology. For example radio network covers entire Vilnius city (it's our capital with ~700'000 population).
Check out the map of this network (I'm very lucky to live on one of those small red dots :)). We've recently upgraded most of our wavelans in Vilnius from 2mbit/s to 10mbit/s. It's a pitty this network has only 2mbit connection to the world.
[www.lema.lt]
If you wish to learn more about technology we use go here [www.lema.lt], to learn more about Litnet go here [litnet.lt]
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:2)
More precisely, this type of system would require a defunct Satelite system, such as "Galaxy". Or a hardware hacker willing to show you how to make a 2.4GHz antenna.
--
They're already sort of doing this in the US (Score:4)
They have around a dozen customers, and there's no problem with the FCC, since the 2.4GHz spectrum is an non-license spectrum. As far as power levels go, I don't know. But it works quite nicely.
(Although for some reason LoboNet doesn't have any mention of it on their site... strange. But I know it's there! Maybe there's some mention at the Integrity Networking Solutions [integrityns.com] site, since many of the wireless networking customers go through them.)
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool stuff. (Score:2)