punknet

A couple of my neighbors and I were talking about setting up a
short-distance radio LAN (we talked about just running coax, but one
of them is across a street and about 60 yds down, we don't want to
buy/lease rights-of-way, etc).  While I know my way around a soldering
iron, I haven't designed a circuit in 10 years, and even then they
weren't terribly complicated.  Pointers to commercially available
hardware or kit plans would be appreciated.  

--
Lyle		Transarc		707 Grant Street
412 338 4474	The Gulf Tower		Pittsburgh 15219

"Gossip is what makes the world go round. I have very few secrets.
 I would be deeply concerned if a device were marketed that could stop 
 interception..."          Emma Nicholson, MP.

Lyle_Seaman@transarc.com wrote:

> A couple of my neighbors and I were talking about setting up a
> short-distance radio LAN (we talked about just running coax,
> but one of them is across a street and about 60 yds down, we
> don't want to buy/lease rights-of-way, etc).  While I know
> my way around a soldering iron, I haven't designed a circuit
> in 10 years, and even then they weren't terribly complicated.
> Pointers to commercially available hardware or kit plans
> would be appreciated.  

Well, I did something similiar about 3 years ago with a friend.  But we
just laid a wire down on the street one evening, spread roofing tar over
it (the liquid sealant type) and let it dry overnight. :)  If your
street has had many patches/repairs over the years, it's unlikely a
casual observer would notice.  (Those that did notice ours thought it
was pretty creative...)

But anyway, on the radio circuit: Building a radio transceiver isn't too
difficult...but connecting it to your computer could be.  Probably the
easiest thing to do is get a simple analog transciever, and use a
error-correcting modem.  Unfortunately that wouldn't be much better than
doing it over the phone anyway...  But let me know how you're project
works out, I might be interested in doing something similiar.