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Question of the Day: Will you be subscribing to the new Disney+ R49 streaming package?
Are you breaking the law with your Wi-Fi antenna?
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vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
I fail to see what is grey about the regulations, or how it is measured. It is well documented in the Gazette and the definition of EIRP is well defined.
Rather the problem is that every man and his dog now nail up an antenna and when it does not work, you just jack up the power. And with most being completely ignorant on basic RF theory, who cares.....
It's near impossible for ICASA to police this as there are thousands of these nodes up and there is no self-regulation. Stuff my neighbour, I'll make sure MY link works.
The biggest enemy of the WISPs turned out to be the WISPs.
ajax
Executive Member
This is incorrect. The free space path loss is about 4 times higher at 5 GHz (path loss proportional to wavelength squared). The higher transmitter power makes up for that loss together with the fact that the same antenna aperture size would have a higher gain at 5 GHz than at 2.4 GHz.
But yes, with less noise in the band, perhaps a longer range connection is possible at 5 GHz than at 2.4 GHz.
Some contradiction here - in a previous paragraph in this article it is stated:"The use of a 20 dBi gain antenna on a standard Wi-Fi router with a 100 mW power output will result in an effective power output of 10 Watts – a hundred times higher than the legal limit of 100 mW
Might just add that with a high gain antenna the effective power in the direction the antenna is pointing becomes the question. In other directions it will be much lower.
Rouxenator
Dank meme lord
I made a very interesting discovery this weekend when I was on the hill accross from the complex where my house is. Normally in my house I can pick up my own wifi and the one from accross the street. When I was up on the hill I could pick up more than 10 wifi networks!! This was about 300m away from the closest houses. Here is pic to give you an idea of where I was in relation to the house : http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/oo140/rouxenator/I Rulz/welgevonden1.jpg
Sadly I could not pick up my wifi network but I am thinking of getting an aerial that would boost the range and give me better coverage for voip calls.
Sadly I could not pick up my wifi network but I am thinking of getting an aerial that would boost the range and give me better coverage for voip calls.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
ICASA?
ICASA couldn't regulate their way out of a paper bag if you gave them a pair of garden shears!
ICASA couldn't regulate their way out of a paper bag if you gave them a pair of garden shears!
The_Unbeliever
Honorary Master
Wardriving should be fun 
The best course of action would be to disable the wireless function of a router by default, but this won't be possible always.
The best course of action would be to disable the wireless function of a router by default, but this won't be possible always.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Wardriving should be fun
The best course of action would be to disable the wireless function of a router by default, but this won't be possible always.
This is what I did at home. I killed all my wireless signals. hardwired all the way baby. The transfer speeds are too slow and the possibility of somebody hacking my signal is a downer.
But I still want to join the WUG as soon as I get line of sight.
Peder
Hobbit
I fail to see what is grey about the regulations, or how it is measured. It is well documented in the Gazette and the definition of EIRP is well defined.
Rather the problem is that every man and his dog now nail up an antenna and when it does not work, you just jack up the power. And with most being completely ignorant on basic RF theory, who cares.....
It's near impossible for ICASA to police this as there are thousands of these nodes up and there is no self-regulation. Stuff my neighbour, I'll make sure MY link works.
The biggest enemy of the WISPs turned out to be the WISPs.
explain the Rf theory then... cause i don't understand how more power relates to someone else losing strength???
Lets say you're in a quiet room, and its just you and the person you're talking to.
You could whisper, and still hold a conversation
Now lets put 10 other people in the room, each having a conversation with each other.
Will you still be able to whisper and have the other person hear you?
Most likely not. You'll need to raise the volume of your own conversation.
Add more people, and soon you'll need to be right up next to the person, screaming into their ear to be heard (like at a loud concert).
If there are more people using the spectrum, there will be higher noise levels. And then you'll need to increase your power or decrease the distance between end points, or both.
But as for the EIRP calculation, its pretty simple:
TX power + antenna gain - loss in cables and connectors = EIRP
eg:
100mW radio, is 20dBm
20dBi antenna
3m of LMR-200 with 2 connectors = approx 5dBi loss
20dBm + 20dBi - 5dBi = 35dBm
35dBm is a little over 3Watts, which is way over the legal limit of 100mW in 2.4Ghz
Its not hard to hit the EIRP limits, and thats the point. If you're careful, and you select your equipment and do the calculations, you won't have a problem.
But the uneducated, don't do the homework. And they end up with the wrong equipment. Which they then crank up just to get it to operate the way they want it to.
We are talking about shared spectrum here. More power means you are blocking the spectrum for people over a bigger area. You will also contribute to the noise floor over an even larger area and degrade the performance (ie speed) of other users of the spectrum.
I think that strongly regulating radio output and being more flexible on the issues of antenna gain would be good for everyone. High antenna gain is achieved by reducing the radiation pattern of the antenna. This means that the high gain antennas have very little 'coverage' but this also significantly reduces the amount of air that is polluted by two people who want to link to each other.
Peder
Hobbit
Okay that makes sense thanx daffy...
But as far as i understand WUG's use standard equipment?
And why would you need to put up a extra antenna on your house for something other than a WUG?
Albereth
Honorary Master
ICASA?
ICASA couldn't regulate their way out of a paper bag if you gave them a pair of garden shears!
LOL - have they even found Blairgowrie yet?
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Brackenhurst, Alberton.
We were waiting for the Platberg High Site... but it does not look like it is pointed in our direction.
You can see my name in Brackenhurst on the Plotter.
Wardriving should be fun
The best course of action would be to disable the wireless function of a router by default, but this won't be possible always.
not a problem for me since my signal hardly reaches 15meters.small usb wireless good enough for the duplex house.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
I think they gave up. They were very glad that the problem went away by itself and wished most of their work would just do that.
ajax
Executive Member
Nice explanation.
You can (to an extent) circumvent the "noise" from the other people by changing your "modulation scheme". I.e. if you were to shout in morse code e.g. just yay!-yay!-yaaay!-yay! then you could still communicate albeit much slower than someone forming words. So you are sending less information over longer time while the other people are sending more information over short time.
Wifi devices like the wifi routers AFAIK should change the modulation scheme and speed automatically but I've found that by manually selecting a certain speed (which boils down to a specific modulation scheme) I was able to get a stable connection.
It's like in a pub. Earlier there is less people and you can have a civil conversation, later on with more people you get that drone/buzz so speak up a bit, even later with even more people you have to scream to your mates sitting right next to you.
Oh, alcohol has no influence here.
Game_Boyz
Active Member
Us, poor, uneducated users shouldn't get blamed - ICASA should first look at all the IT distributors, and maybe educate them first - like they (or sabc) did with the TV card issue - you need to produce a license if you wanna buy one.