[MLB-WIRELESS] Applications on the melb-wireless network

[dwayne]

David Arnold wrote:

> burt rutan (the guy who designed the gossamer albatross and the other
> pedal/solar powered planes in the 80's) has a company that is building
> a plane designed for this sort of thing.  i believe that someone is
> planning to do this over Chicago (?) using three shifts of 8 hours.

Yeah, but this involves aircraft which have been modified.

I've been kicking around for years the idea of a station-keeping
upper-atmosphere balloon which acts as a repeater.
 

> see  http://angeltechnologies.com/


Also

http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/6046.html

 
> i've also heard rumours that some airlines are planning to look at
> this: over the continental US and Europe, there are a huge number of
> planes in the air at any one time.  if they ran a switch and a
> transceiver dish each with some smart handover software, they'd be able
> to provide a 24/7 coverage of most populated areas.

Wow, I *like* this idea.
 
> what sort of latency do we introduce at 10km up?

bugger all.
 
> other than that ... i think it's a fine idea.  a few solar cells, a
> newish laptop, a bunch of pringle cantennae, and the worlds biggest
> wine cask bladder and we're off ... ! ;-)

Attractive, isn't it?

When this list first started the idea of tethered balloons was discussed, but
not too many people were convinced it would work.

I wasn't convinced.  Nifty idea. Almost  :-/

Dwayne

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