Bluetooth a Mile Away
on 10.29.04, 01:42pm in life • digg this • comments (2)
[Popular Science] With a simple mod, I can make a Bluetooth connection up to a mile away—about 4,950 feet farther than most. Bandwidth isn’t increased, so it’s not a Wi-Fi killer, but now I can connect to my Bluetooth devices from anywhere in the house or yard.
More information and pictures can be found up at Bluedriving.com.
Speaking of replacing antennas - remember a few months ago when I was talking about replacing the antenna of my Netgear WGR614 router? I was finally able to track down a place to get the right connector (an U.FL to RP-SMA female bulkhead, bought from JEFATech) so I could add on a Netgear ANT-05 Omnidirectional and really boost the range of my 802.11g.
I’m planning on doing the upgrade in the next week or so, I’ll post some pictures and instructions with the results.
JeffMc (October 29, 2004 @ 3:10 pm)
The only issue I see with this is regulatory. Bluetooth is covered under Part 15 of the FCC rules. It should not cause interference, and should be able to tolerate interference by others. The way to get the distance is a) increase the power (which is against the Part 15 rules) and to also increase gain on the antenna (increases receiver sensitivity and ERP (effected radiated power), which again, is against Part 15 of the rules). If the rules were not there, I could hook a nice 10 DB gain antenna to the magnetron in my microwave and barrage jam every 2.4Ghz device in the surrounding county with broadband noise.
X (April 1, 2007 @ 10:35 am)
Isn’t it: shouldn’t cause harmful interference? And doesn’t any RF at all cause interference? I think it’s the intent & usage that really matters there. Otherwise A LOT of stuff is illegal.