...a radio encased in a spherical antenna like a ball?

Tron Of Borg

That's what the sun is. But just try building one in you garage :-)

I don't know how you would drive - or far that matter build a spherical antenna.

<da.nyet>

I don't know Tron, that spherical antenna surrounding the AP sounds alot like a Farraday cage. I don't know if you would get anything.

Ok...how about a Dyson Sphere.?

In case you don't know....
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/st-tng/episodes/230.html

Tron Of Borg

You're straying from antenna design here, but if you insist... :-) Try Larry Niven's Ringworld and the other books in the Known Space series. The design is actually much more practical than a Dyson sphere. Less material is used; only about the total for a given solar system.

This brings up another completely Off Topic subject, namely, did Mr. Niven get anything from MS for the XBox game HALO or have lawyers mounted a large lawsuit? LOL.

Another old SF fan,
Thorn

See Subject. (sniff)

Tron Of Borg

Tron:
You CAN'T use more than one radio/antenna combination without building in port to port isolation.
With 802.11b being a "scanning" system, you can't even build duplexers for this, the TX and RX separations would be impossible to garner due to the nature of these devices.

Multicouplers work great on multiple VHF/UHF and 800 Mhz radios because they have set channels used for transmit and receive, 802.11b doesn't, they have active scanning, whcih means that you would not be able to force the same channels to be active between the two cards, and also have multiple cards transmitting and receiving at the same time, this iis not feasable currently.

Duplexers are used to separate the transmitter from the receiver on TWO CHANNEL radios ONLY, usually, you would see 6 "cans" for a VHF duplexer and 4 "cans" for UHF systems, two "cans" for each "channel" of the system, one set for the TX portion and the other for the RX portion.

Multicouplers use SEVERAL cavities tuned to each channel to keep the TX and RX paths of everry radio out of each others path, this maintains the QOS, keeps intermod down and provides equal power distribution betweenevry transmitter to the antenna or antennas(where the splitters go).
Cellular systems use this very format to cover every "cell" that the site "sees". A common cell site has 8 transmitters, 8 receivers, not to mention the cavities, power amps and locating receivers and transmitters that are used to constantly transmit the overhead data stream to your cellphone. They also direct your phone to increase or decrease the transmit power if your signal is weak or strong, depending on the RSSI information the site gets from listening to your uplink signals.

I doubt anybody would like to spend $50,000 on multiple cavities, recevier multicouplers and TX/RX amps just to war drive!

Single cavities and duplexers are available for 2.4 Ghz., but they COST and are not simple to make with coffee cans, soup cans and the like.

If you like to build gear, hack your card's R.F. section and take the signal and downconvert it to UHF, and also do the same on the TX path, but that is even more involved(think PLLs, Clock oscillators, PIN diodes)and so on...IT GETS DEEP from there!

Peruse www.mdc-inc.net, www.klmicrowave.com, www.kmwinc.com,
www.minicircuits.com, www.synergymwave.com for more info.

I have several companies I deal with for connectors, nothing is out of reach, simply mail me at: ka9uce@NOSPAMnetscape.net for information on connectors, RF devices and antennas.
ICQ:24800907, I'm on now!
73!
DATA/ka9uce, A.E.C