What I'm more interested in is what were the agriculture applications?
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message -----
From: "James McKinion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 5:58 PM
Subject: Re:[WISPA]Farmers Wanting full Farm Coverage
We have had two commercial cotton farms in Mississippi under complete
wireless local area network coverage for about 3 years in a current
demonstration project for precision agriculture applications. The farm in
eastern Mississippi has about 1600 acres of contiguous farmland with gently
rolling land. We used Alvarion BreezeAccess II equipment with an omni
antenna at thebase station to communicate to three repeater station located
at the edges of the farm. Directional panel antennas connected to
BreezeAccess II 2.4 GHz radios which then went to Breezecomm radios
connected to 120 degree sector antennas which broadcast into the farm to the
equipment in the fields. THe farm equipment was equipped with Breezecom
radios attached to omni antennas. All of these radios are frequency hopping
spread spectrum radios. These have a range of about 2.5 miles talking from
sector antennas to omnis. Wifi will onlu have a range of 1500 feet talking
to omnis. An omni antenna is the only cost effective practical device to
put on a tractor, combine or truck. The other reason we chose Alvarion is
that their radios automatically handle mobility. That is, they can
automatically hand over communcation from sector to sector as boudaries are
crossed with loosing connection or packets of data. This system has a user
data rate of 2 Mbps. The base station has a Starband satellite link to the
Internet. We have also used DirecWay satellite links.
The other farm is located in the Mississippi Dellta and is set up similarly
with the exception being that the communication from the base station to the
9 repeater stations is handled using the Waverider 900 MHz radios. This
farm consists of over 12000 acrs of cotton farmland separated by various
tree lines and is roughly oval shaped with the major axis being 12 miles
from side to side with the farm headquarters situated in the middle. We
needed the 900 MHz radios to penetrate the trre lines to reach the Breezecom
repeaters with 120 degree sector antennas to provide field coverage. THe
siganl from the base station reaches almost 10 miles so the entire farm is
covered by the base station. However, you must use yagi antenna precisely
aimed to get reception. Thus, the use of the repeater station using
Alvarion Breezecom as before.
I can sen you a copy of the research paper we published if this is of
further interest to you.
James
Dr. James M. McKinion
USDA-ARS
Genetics and Precision Agriculture Res. Unit
P. O. Box 5367
Mississippi State, MS 39762
Ph: 662-320-7449
FAX: 662-320-7528
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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