Many Ham Radio operators in the United States participate in Field Day. This is an annual exercise where radio operators are encouraged to set up stations in conditions that might occur after a natural disaster. Usually, this means taking over some park or camp site, bringing generators, portable equipment, and making it all work for the weekend before you tear it back down.
It isn’t much of a Field Day without electricity. That’s why most stations use a generator, solar cells, or even batteries. Today, though, you probably need an Internet-connected computer to do logging and other features. [HamRadioConcepts] has a video (see below) that shows how they grabbed Internet from a distance for their Field Day site.
The key that made it possible is the fact that most cable companies now broadcast public WiFi hotspots from residential and commercial routers. You usually need to opt out of this and most people don’t. If you have home Internet through that provider, you can usually use these hot spots for free.
In this case, there was no hotspot in range, but across the lake there were several. Using a dish and a 1 Watt USB network adapter, they were able to get on computer on the network and then use connection sharing to propagate the WiFi around the Field Day site.
If you prefer to roll your own antenna, we can help especially if you have a wire mesh spoon.
Filed under: wireless hacks
// from Hackaday http://ift.tt/29dttm5
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