W4NNG wrote:
Hello everyone

Like Mike, I also have the MFJ-1800. And boy was I surprised when none of
my shack full of type N to SMA adapters didn't work. I can't believe they
reversed the polarity of the center pins for WIFI SMA connectors. Urrrrgh
!!!

Required by Part 15..Has to be a connector with is "not commonly
available". Reverse Polarity SMA and TNC connectors are pretty standard
for this application, to the point where you can get adapters and jumper
cables pretty easily.

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:18:45 -0800, (Dave Platt)
wrote:

Plugging an arbitrarily-chosen antenna into a WiFi radio (access point
or client) will void the Part 15 certification of the device, and it
becomes technically illegal to operate it.

Hi Dave,

At the risk of becoming a stockade-lawyer, I've perused the band plans
(I presume that the 13cM band has not been confiscated in the past few
years), and I think I am reasonably adept at the law in this regard.
As WiFi shares our allocation; it is noteworthy that we as amateurs
are the ONLY service that does NOT require FCC type acceptance to
operate. To my mind, the only issue is one of knowingly interfering
with a service (that doesn't seem to be an issue, however).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

In article ,
Richard Clark wrote:

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:18:45 -0800, (Dave Platt)
wrote:

Plugging an arbitrarily-chosen antenna into a WiFi radio (access point
or client) will void the Part 15 certification of the device, and it
becomes technically illegal to operate it.

Hi Dave,

At the risk of becoming a stockade-lawyer, I've perused the band plans
(I presume that the 13cM band has not been confiscated in the past few
years), and I think I am reasonably adept at the law in this regard.
As WiFi shares our allocation; it is noteworthy that we as amateurs
are the ONLY service that does NOT require FCC type acceptance to
operate. To my mind, the only issue is one of knowingly interfering
with a service (that doesn't seem to be an issue, however).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

True Richard, HOWEVER, if your passing Internet Traffic, over your
none-Type Accepted, Amateur Licensed WiFi Link, you MUST abide by
ALL the rules of Part 97, not just the ERP Rules, including Non-
Commercial Content, and Identification.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

"Bruce in alaska" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Richard Clark wrote:

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:18:45 -0800, (Dave Platt)
wrote:

Plugging an arbitrarily-chosen antenna into a WiFi radio (access point
or client) will void the Part 15 certification of the device, and it
becomes technically illegal to operate it.

Hi Dave,

At the risk of becoming a stockade-lawyer, I've perused the band plans
(I presume that the 13cM band has not been confiscated in the past few
years), and I think I am reasonably adept at the law in this regard.
As WiFi shares our allocation; it is noteworthy that we as amateurs
are the ONLY service that does NOT require FCC type acceptance to
operate. To my mind, the only issue is one of knowingly interfering
with a service (that doesn't seem to be an issue, however).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

True Richard, HOWEVER, if your passing Internet Traffic, over your
none-Type Accepted, Amateur Licensed WiFi Link, you MUST abide by
ALL the rules of Part 97, not just the ERP Rules, including Non-
Commercial Content, and Identification.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

most, but not all, of the channels used for wifi fall in the amateur
allocation. so if you really want to be technical be sure you set the
access point on the good channels, as well as adding your call for
identification, filtering content, etc.

Thanks Dave -- this sure sheds a lot of light on all the odd connectors


"Dave Platt" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone

Like Mike, I also have the MFJ-1800. And boy was I surprised when none of
my shack full of type N to SMA adapters didn't work. I can't believe they
reversed the polarity of the center pins for WIFI SMA connectors.
Urrrrgh
!!!

The FCC requires that Part 15 WiFi devices, having detachable
antennas, *must* use connectors which are not the common, generic,
off-the-shelf standard types.

This was done in order to (try to) (help) enforce the rule that Part
15 radios, and their antennas, must be certificated as a complete
system (radio + antenna), by the manufacturer or by an organization
which does the installation.

Manufacturers of such devices can perform the testing certification
with several different types of antennas, and using such antennas with
that particular device is legal (since they've been certificated as a
system).

Plugging an arbitrarily-chosen antenna into a WiFi radio (access point
or client) will void the Part 15 certification of the device, and it
becomes technically illegal to operate it. That's why a whole bunch
of nonstandard (reverse-polarity, reverse-thread, or otherwise altered
and perverted) connectors are used... the manufacturers are *trying*
to deter people from "one from column A, one from column B"
interplugging, because that's what the FCC has instructed them to do.

The rule gets about as much respect as laws against jaywalking,
littering, or cussing in South Pasadena during the first week of
March, but it's on the books ne'ertheless.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Jim Lux writes:

W4NNG wrote:
Hello everyone

Like Mike, I also have the MFJ-1800. And boy was I surprised when
none of my shack full of type N to SMA adapters didn't work. I
can't believe they reversed the polarity of the center pins for
WIFI SMA connectors. Urrrrgh !!!

Required by Part 15..Has to be a connector with is "not commonly
available". Reverse Polarity SMA and TNC connectors are pretty
standard for this application, to the point where you can get adapters
and jumper cables pretty easily.

And soon, we're going to get radios which use reverse polarity
connectors, because they're more easily available :-)

LA4RT Jon

Richard Clark wrote:
On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:18:45 -0800, (Dave Platt)
wrote:


Plugging an arbitrarily-chosen antenna into a WiFi radio (access point
or client) will void the Part 15 certification of the device, and it
becomes technically illegal to operate it.


Hi Dave,

At the risk of becoming a stockade-lawyer, I've perused the band plans
(I presume that the 13cM band has not been confiscated in the past few
years), and I think I am reasonably adept at the law in this regard.
As WiFi shares our allocation; it is noteworthy that we as amateurs
are the ONLY service that does NOT require FCC type acceptance to
operate. To my mind, the only issue is one of knowingly interfering
with a service (that doesn't seem to be an issue, however).

One does, of course, need to operate at a frequency in the ham bands
(some of the 802.11 channels are not in the ham bands...)

Some of the fancier WLAN gear is perfectly ok for Part 15 (with
appropriate antenna) but cannot work as amateur gear (because it
radiates out of the ham band).

SNIP2SAVE-------
It's about 600 bucks but a Cysco 2400 WiFi with PoE support
would do this, however , remoting into a router everytime you
want to scour the bands or make an AP change is a bit of a
nucense. Thats what turns people to USB Dish and Dongle
setups. You can switch AP access on the fly, with the router
you have to "Go To Work" sort of speek. It does however
benefiet your telnet skills. :-)
If I could find a lower end name "Repeater" capable AP point
unit like a NetGear or similar and program it to autologon to
unprotected WiFi access points That would Kick butt.
Thats called promiscuous mode but has moral issues.
And another turn off, Two transmitters equalls double the
Packet overhead witch converts to half the speed even if you
have a strong signal. The KISS methoud always wins for
performance in WiFi.

I'd like to learn more about why the USB is chosen.

Jerry KD6JDJ






--
Quote "Get SSL VPN services now, KEEP Government OUT of your
business... "

On 04 Mar 2008, you wrote in rec.radio.amateur.antenna:


Maybe I am missing something here, but if you put a
wireless router at the top of the tower why do you need
anything else other than power up the mast? You can can
talk to the router locally over the air without the need
for a cable connection.

Jeff



There are two issues that I am ignorant to;
1; is the WEB services that are built into these routers in
order to program them too often is DIS-Allowed through the
AIR.
Most make you connect to a "DMZ" drop [cat5] on the router to
bypass the NAT firewall and administer the stats that way.
I have never succeeded in getting to that page through Wi-Fi
methods. Some routers are easy to get to through the NAT drops
provided on the router there are generally 2 or 3 of them. You
can NULL cat5 into the things direct from a laptop, but AirNet
into them? I haven't seen that [yet].


--
Quote "Get SSL VPN services now, KEEP Government OUT of your
business... "

" W4NNG" wrote in
:

Like Mike, I also have the MFJ-1800. And boy was I
surprised when none of my shack full of type N to SMA
adapters didn't work. I can't believe they reversed the
polarity of the center pins for WIFI SMA connectors.
Urrrrgh

Whatch out MFJ, here comes my soldering gun :-)

--
Quote "Get SSL VPN services now, KEEP Government OUT of your
business... "