10 foot sat dish: why did you lock my thread?

[rufusputnam]

Regarding my post entitled: Best feedhorn for 10 foot parabolic dish?

I asked:

Any antenna experts who can tell me the best feedhorn to use for a 10 foot dish?

Thorn replied:

The gain is so high on a dish of that size that it is illegal, unless you're a Ham.

and locked the thread.

So....I AM a ham (Amateur Extra Class, since junior high school in 1965), and also an electrical engineer who specialized in communications theory, but that's not the point.

I live on a ridgetop, over 10 miles from the nearest town. I've been using 28.8 kbps over a noisy phone line for 5 years. It sucks.

Using a 24 dbi parabolic + 200 mw transmit power I can connect to a public access point, down in a valley about 10 miles away, with a fairly high BER.

Using a 10 foot dish and a cantenna as the feed, the BER drops substantially.

Turns out the sensitivity of my receiver is far more critical than my transmit power. I can pad the tx power substantially and still connect.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but using a 10' dish to improve my receive sensitivity is perfectly legal. And dropping the tx power appropriately will put my system back within legal limits. It's ERP that counts, no?

However, do I really care if I'm a bit overpowered and therefore illegal? Not really. (The ham ticket can't be applied to this application, by the way).

As far as the AP is concerned, I'm just a fairly weak signal connected to it. No harm done, none intended.

I found the answer to my technical question on a different and more friendly site. So I'm up and running, finally connecting at higher than 28.8.

So, why would my original question be rejected by this forum and the thread locked? Did I offend some power person here? Gosh, sorry.

[SignalSeeker]

You are most likey stealing internet "10 miles" away. Doesn't matter if you are next door or the next town over you are a thief.

Give us your call sign, we have many hams here that can determine wether you are legal or not with that amount of power.

Justin

[streaker69]

Please define "public access point".

[theprez98]

Originally Posted by SignalSeeker

You are most likey stealing internet "10 miles" away. Doesn't matter if you are next door or the next town over you are a thief.

Give us your call sign, we have many hams here that can determine wether you are legal or not with that amount of power.

Justin

What he is saying is that since this is a wifi application and not an amateur radio application, the fact that he is a licensed amateur radio operator has nothing to do with the power restrictions. In this case, he is correct. An amateur radio license does not give us free reign to use whatever power we want on any particular band (obviously).

As for the "public" access point and whether or not he can connect to it, that's an issue for the owner of the AP and the AUP of the ISP provider.

[Thorn]

The thread was locked because it is ILLEGAL to run this as Part 15.

Is that clear enough for you?

This is of course, exactly what you've admitted to now. Jackasses like you should have your license pulled. It just give a black eye for the rest of us.

[wrzwaldo]

Originally Posted by rufusputnam

Turns out the sensitivity of my receiver is far more critical than my transmit power. I can pad the tx power substantially and still connect.

No shit? Your ARE a ham and it took you how long to figure this out?

Originally Posted by you again

However, do I really care if I'm a bit overpowered and therefore illegal? Not really.

Breaking the law and admitting to it will get you one thing around here (binned and banned). Wakeup dumbass and read the welcome desk posts.

Originally Posted by yep, you again

I found the answer to my technical question on a different and more friendly site. So I'm up and running, finally connecting at higher than 28.8.

You mean a site that assists law breakers and fucktards in general! So your up and running? Who gives a shit?

Originally Posted by your dumbass again

So, why would my original question be rejected by this forum and the thread locked? Did I offend some power person here? Gosh, sorry.

Because you are a fucktard.


...

How about we see the IP of this turd so the ISP can be notified.

[rufusputnam]

Wow. I'm sorry. Lots of obscenities and incorrect assumptions about what I'm doing.

At least I got the answer to my question:

The thread was locked because it is ILLEGAL to run this as Part 15.

Thanks for explaining why it was locked. However, it's not my intention to run an illegal setup. I know I'm just throwing gas on the flamefest, but let me explain what I'm doing, then I'll go away.

First, some accused me of being a thief, stealing internet access. Nope. My test connection is a public access point (as I said) run by the local government. Free. Public. If only other local communities were so enlightened.

But ultimately I want to run a link to a co-worker's home in the same general vicinity. If I can get a QRP (low power, for you non-hams) part 15-legal link up then I've got a means to access our company's VPN, and the general internet as well (and yes, our IT dept is cool with this, for those who might also accuse me of stealing from my own company).

The reason for my original question ("Recommendations for a feed horn for a 10' dish?") is that I have an abandoned 10' TVRO dish here, and if I run my rig sufficiently QRP I have the advantage of tremendous receive sensitivity while transmitting within legal limits. Part of this exercise is simple technical curiosity, to do it and learn from it.

If I've misread the part 15 stuff about ERP, please enlighten me. However, to my current understanding, it's not illegal to use a 10' dish under part 15, only to transmit a signal that's in excess of the legal limit.

For 802.11b point to multi-point uses, you are allowed up to 30 dBm or 1 watt of Transmitter Power Output (TPO) with a 6 dBi antenna or 36 dBm or 4 watts Effective Radiated Power over an isotropic antenna (EIRP). The TPO needs to be reduced 1 dB for every dB of antenna gain over 6 dBi.

No mention of antenna type or size. It's easy to pad tx output power, and to measure final output to assure compliance.

So the reason I originally posted my technical question about dish feeds was because I thought someone here might be able to share their knowledge. I didn't intend to piss anyone off.

[Thorn]

Your interpertation of the Part 15 rules are correct. Actually, the PtP rules apply which allow you up to 47dBm ERP.

However, what is your computed ERP? Most dishes in that size work out to something in excess of 50dBd gain. Even if you pushing 1dBm out the feed, you're automatically exceeding the limit.

[Airstreamer]

Originally Posted by rufusputnam

Wow. I'm sorry. Lots of obscenities and incorrect assumptions about what I'm doing.

-chop-

So the reason I originally posted my technical question about dish feeds was because I thought someone here might be able to share their knowledge. I didn't intend to piss anyone off.

I think you just tripped the 'automatic triggers' that folks develop around here after reading what at first appears to be one more "Social Engineering" attempt to get information to cheat somebody out of service.

Steve