Wireless Dreaming...

[petehalsted]

Ok, here's what I want.

A little black box, that runs on batteries, that I can stick a CF card in it and read it via a wireless connection from upto a 1/4 mile away. I would settle for an 1/8 a mile if I had to.

Since most of the stuff we shoot require the photographer to stay in place all day, we wind up having to have a 3rd person that doesn't do anything but run chips back and forth. If we had my little black box the photographer could put the CF card in the box and let me know over the radio that I can download it.

BTW if any of you think the wireless lan stuff that is currently available is the answer WRONG!! I have a cople of wireless lan cards and an Access Point. Thier suppose to do upto 300 feet outdoors, my guess that test was done during a solor eclipse or while Haley's comet was passing by because I have never been able to connect from over 150 feet and that is under perfect conditions.

With all the wireless technology being pushed these days you think someone would work on a blackbox like what I want. If anyone knows of such a beat PLEASE PLEASE let me know...

[Joey_Chong]

The problem with the wireless lan is that the companies that development them test the nodes when they are in line-of-site to one other. They test the nodes with no walls/buildings in between them so that they can quote a higher distance, hence why they say "up to x miles". So if you're out in the open it is a viable option. If you're in a building the problem may arise again given the number of obstacles in the way.

[petehalsted]

They quote 300 feet outdoors. I have never beat 150 feet with line of site. At 150 feet she could dang near throw me the chips <G>

[Joe_Shrader]

Pete -

I use Lucent's Orinoco Silver Cards and Access Point - in outdoor testing I have shot directly into a Sony Vaio laptop fitted with a wireless pcmcia card & EXTERNAL ANTENNA...and have hit my network thru the access point (again with an EXTERNAL ANTENNA) from 300' away....but without the external antennas it's not worth a flip...

I've also used the same setup with Timbuktu to remote fire a Nikon D1 too....

FWIW -

Joe

[petehalsted]

Where did you get the remote antena's from. I am using DLink Cards and Access point. I talked to thier support and they hinted that there might be a 3rd party that supplies external antena's but they would/could not give me any more info.

[Kevin_M_Cox]

Depending on how much money you have to throw at it, this would work. Interesting reading if nothing else.

Robert X. Cringely of PBS is using Apple Airport 802.11b on a 10 kilometer "line of sight" connection at his home in California.

He has two columns documenting the setup. They should obviously be read in order.

Part 1
Part 2

[Joe_Shrader]

Pete -

The external antennas for Lucent's Orinoco system were purchased separately from PC Connection (www.pcconnection.com) - as I remember they were about $60/ea

Joe