[lug] cheap 802.11b for linux...

[Rob Nagler]

> RG-58 at 2.4 Ghz is just a leaky sieve.  Very little of the very little 
> power the cards put out will make it to the antenna.  However with the 
> attic mount thing, since received signals should do okay, it may still 
> just work and it's a lot cheaper than running heliax or similar.  It's 

I definitely had loss.  The big problem is I don't know how to measure
it.  I was walking around my neighborhood with a laptop and a number
of antennas (which everybody thought was very interesting ;-), and it
seemed to me, the cable length had nothing to do with the signal
quality.  I was getting very good quality transfer speeds (500KBps)
using 10 feet of RG 58.  As I walked hundreds of feet away, the signal
remained good as long as it was line of site.  I don't have the data
right here.

Perhaps I don't understand radios well enough to understand the
effects of loss in the cable vs. distance.

There are also ways to increase the output of the Linksys by twiddling
some registers.  (Jonathan, did you ever do this, or did you send the
link to me so I could blow up my access point first?  ;-)

The cost thing is less important to than the line-of-sight thing is.
I had notions of creating a business (probably non-profit) out of this
until I actually tried it.  There is at least one company trying to do
this, but I believe it just won't work with the existing technology.
My guess is if anybody made a one amp transmitter, it would be the way
to go.  Again, my knowledge of radios is almost zero.

Rob