[MLB-WIRELESS] Purchasing omnidirectional antennas

[Robert Graham Merkel]

It seems that the most appropriate first antenna for what
I want to do is an omnidirectional (mainly because there
are several people who I'd like to link to who are within
2 kms, all in different directions).

A couple of questions, then:

1) I gather that the very high-gain omnis aren't useful
because the vertical distribution of the beam is too narrow.
What's the maximum practical?  I don't care about the antenna
working in my own house (already have a fixed network there
which works fine), but I would want to be able to
connect to people within a few hundred metres as well as
a maximum range of a couple of k's.  
2) From talking to somebody at the meeting (sorry, forgotten
who), it also appears that the homebuilt omni designs
we've seen so far don't work well enough to be useful.
Therefore, it sounds like I need a commercial omni.
Where can I get one?  There doesn't seem to be any listed
on the TIB at the moment.

Oh, and I think I need to make a comment on the relative
merits of various operating systems  . . . ;)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Node FLY on Melbourne Wireless : http://www.wireless.org.au
------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message