Batboard

I just heard about the GoTenna this afternoon. Unless I am way off base here, it sounds like they are using MURS frequencies for this. The application that would most interest me would be aboard a cruise ship when we go to the Caribbean. We have gotten by fine in the past with Nextel Direct Talk, but my wife and oldest son are so into texting that this might work for them. Somewhere I read on their website that they tried 900 mHz, but it wasn't successful for them. That sort of surprises me. In fact, I would think that 1 watt on the ISM 902-928 mHz band would have been quite suitable.

http://static.gotenna.com/

http://www.cnet.com/news/gotenna-create ... -on-earth/

900MHz UHF has terrible propagation qualities, especially in open terrain. It gets attenuated by foliage, it doesn't propagate over hills or around obstacles, and antennas get detuned much worse by body proximity than lower frequencies. The only thing 900MHz is good at is having a lot of available spectrum.

One of the main bands GSM operates on is 900MHz. If you can't communicate to a 100-foot tower on those frequencies, you're definitely not going to be able to do anything point-to-point.

Interesting concept. Presales now with (possible) delivery in Fall of 2014. Reading between the lines, they need $50K in presales before they will manufacture. Obviously their range estimates for 2W async data are WAGs, but they can dial those back as they gain more real world experience with their own product.