From the July 21, 2004 issue of the IEEE Tech Alert E-Mail Newsletter:
This month, a 3000-meter-high antenna will rise over Atlanta, but area residents might not notice. The antenna won’t be a metal rod at the end of a hulking tower, but a solar-powered, helium-and-nitrogen-filled airship that will receive signals from nearby ground stations and rebroadcast them over the Atlanta metropolitan area. The test transmission of voice, data, and video in many standard forms will be part of a demonstration planned by a local company, Sanswire Networks LLC, to show that high-altitude platforms –or HAPs as they are known in the telecommunications world — can work as mid-air base stations for wireless communications.
Sanswire is just one of many companies around the world that think HAPs can overcome the limitations of both satellites and terrestrial towers. But first these companies will have to prove their airworthiness to national airspace regulators, such as the Federal Aviation Administration.
See “An Eye in the Sky,” by Willie D. Jones.
Think of the coverage your repeater would have if it was riding on one of these babies!
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