Mike Horwath wrote: > On Sun, May 05, 2002 at 11:08:34AM -0500, olearysheehy at goldengate.net wrote: > > 3. I remain interested in hearing recommendations for AP > > hardware. Thanks to your comments, I am definitely convinced that > > 802.11a is not the way to go. > > Why do you not like 802.11a? > > The 2.4Ghz freq is filled with a ton of things that shit over the > whole spectrum, from phones to baby monitors to APs. > > I dumped my 802.11b stuff because of this contant interference and got > rid of my 2.4Ghz phones, jumped onto 802.11a and been reasonably happy > since. Ack. If I was considering what network technology to equip my house with today, cost wasn't a prime concern, I had no need for an external antenna, and wasn't phased by the oncoming products making me wish I'd waited; 802.11a would be on the list. I do not think it is the correct choice for a community/block network at present. Here's my thoughts: o Most of the equipment currently available uses the section of the band that the FCC regs say can only use built-in antennae (not just "difficult to modify", like RP-xxx, MMCX etc etc), so it is difficult/impossible to add external antennae. When using an external antenna, the cable loss is going to be higher a given type of coax, perhaps forcing you to move up to larger cable: Loss dB/100ft: 2.5GHz 5.7GHz =========================== LMR400 6.8 10.7 LMR600 4.4 7.2 LMR900 3.0 4.8 (source - http://timesmicrowave.com/cgi-bin/calculate) o For a community project like this, client card re-use at {hot-spots, college, library} is a factor that is also worth considering. 802.11a is not widely deployed in these roles, yet. I do agree that 2.4GHz is going to be a very crowded band, and that the range of anything based in that band may ultimately be interference-limited rather than noise-limited. Sounds like this time has already arrived for Mike. This is one of the reasons I shudder at the thought of putting a 802.11b node on top of the IDS. -- andyw at pobox.com Andy Warner Voice: (612) 801-8549 Fax: (208) 575-5634