A few hams have bought the Doodle Labs DL-435-30 transceiver.
The radio is capable of about 6 Mbps of data throughput utilizing a 5 MHz wide channel in the under-used 420-440 MHz ATV sub-band.
These were first made available in November 2011, so tests have been somewhat limited. However here are some initial conclusions:
At 20-30 feet using a 6 dBi gain omnidirectional antenna a couple different ham groups have seen 1/2 mile to 3/4 of a mile usable non-line of site mobile coverage using a 1/4 wave mag mount antenna. Both reports were in moderate to heavily mature tree neighborhoods.
Keep in mind at this low of a frequency, the height of the antenna will play a role to clear the large Fresnel zone and improve the performance.
The fact that you are not competing with your next door neighbors WiFi, makes these boards great for HSMM. If you can find a few hams in your area interested in it, there are bunch of possibility's for an OLSR network built on these things. Eliminating internet costs at repeater sites, repeater linking etc.
I'd appreciate hearing from other hams who are experimenting with this board wishing to share their reports.
Here is a short video that Kyle, N0KEW made:
6 comments:
Thanks for posting this. N0KEW
I also submitted this report to TAPR's PSR for their April issue.
Here is a short video I made doing some testing on these: http://youtu.be/SL9WvTQ6Y2E
How much did they end up costing, and where did you buy them?
For now, you can order them direct from Doodle Labs. With exchange rate variances they should be between $150-200 a piece.
Hey folks! Good to know its working fine. Keep the Good works.
Cheers!
Joyanta
DL
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