While not necessarily related to wireless networking, you may find this interesting if you watch the Rose Parade tomorrow.
Happy New Year! Frank ----- Original Message ----- ARRLSB - The Official ARRL Santa Barbara Section Mailing List -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Live Rose Parade ATV from the Cal Tech float on the Internet While there will be no ham radio as part of the Pasadena New Year's Day Rose Parade operations this year, there will be ATV from the Cal Tech float. Jay Holliday, W6EJJ and members of the Jet Propulsion Lab Radio Club, W6VIO, will have ATV transmitting on 23cm (1.2GHz) using the new P. C. Electronics RTX23-3 transmitter from the float to a building top portable repeater site with an output on 70 cm. There will be a 70 cm receiver at Cal Tech which will put out streaming video on the Internet. You can see the video by bringing up this URL: http://www.floatcam.caltech.edu You can check this URL now and see if you will be able to see the video. I'm not sure where in the parade the Cal Tech float will be, but we expect the video to be up as soon as it makes the big turn at Orange Grove Ave. and Colorado Blvd. in front of the broadcast TV cameras - parade starts at 8 AM pst. So if you know anyone who will be on the parade route, ask them to wave at the Cal Tech float just before it passes and say you will be watching for them via the internet. It might be interesting for ATV hams to note that 23 cm instead of 70 cm had to be used on the float due to size restrictions. In fact, special permission by the Tournament of Roses was given so as not to have to cover the antenna with flowers or seeds which could have greatly attenuated the signal. Dave, W6OAL at The Olde Antenna Lab built a special Mini Wheel antenna with reflector and placed in a radome for the float. Wheels are circular polarized perpendicular to the wheels plane. With all the buildings on each side of Colorado Blvd. acting as a reflective canyon, it is thought that using circular polarization would cut the chance of multipath ghosting in half. The portable repeater used is similar to the one you can download from the http://www.hamtv.com/info.html application note page by clicking on ATV for Public Service Events where the whole repeater is built into a milk crate or Pack-N-Roll for easy transport and set up. (W6ORG) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2004-298 Blog: http://www.2020hindsight.org/category/travelogue/tourist-in-my-hometown/ Another Webcam: http://www.oldpasadena.com/richcam/
