Yolo Amateur Radio Society —
Mt. Vaca Radio Club
Serving Yolo County, CA & Nearby Areas

Long Distance Wifi

Introduction

Several members of YARS, in particular Shayne N6SPE, Robert KC6UDS, and Dave KC6YFG, have been experimenting with long distance wifi for the past several years. After several experiments, including airborne wifi, we have established a permanent wifi link from a repeater site on Mt. Vaca to Davis, with a path length of approximately 21 3/4 miles.

The current practical use for the wifi link is to gate the data from the YARS Special Event APRS System to the internet. For fun, we've also put a camera on the mountain, looking easterly across the Sacramento Valley.

View an image from Mt. Vaca
View a gallery of past images from Mt. Vaca

Experiments

Here are some pictures from a few of our earlier experiments:

Webcam installed in airplane
Webcam installed in airplane.

Dave, KC6YFG, with his airplane, testing wireless router setup
Dave, KC6YFG, with his airplane, testing wireless router setup.

Dipole antenna on airplane
Dipole antenna on airplane.

Dish antenna at the earth station
Dish antenna at the earth station.

Shayne, N6SPE, and Jon, KF6ZIX, discuss the network setup
Shayne, N6SPE, and Jon, KF6ZIX, discuss the network setup.

Robert, KC6UDS, aims the dish
Robert, KC6UDS, aims the dish.

Shayne, N6SPE, checks reception using a home brew flat panel antenna
Shayne, N6SPE, checks reception using a home brew flat panel antenna.

Resources

Here are some links to other information about wifi and amateur radio: