[BC] sports audio feed

[Tom Spencer]

My thought might be to use the cell connection as a backup if WiFi isn't 
available - and you can improve your WiFi connection by using a 
high-gain adapter/antenna, like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/High-Gain-dBi-Yagi-Antenna-Built-In-Network-adaptor-USB-/390265697129

It comes with a 16-foot USB cable attached;  I've used one of their 
less-expensive ones (the boom is PVC rather than brass) to reach over a 
mile (clear shot) with somewhere around 50 Mbps (roughly half 100T 
Ethernet) data rates.

It's also great for penetrating walls to get to the free Hot Spot in the 
hotel lobby rather than having to use the pay link elsewhere.  Link 
reliability is pretty good - the included software has a link display so 
you can see the quality - unfortunately, it's not a fast-enough response 
to help aim the antenna, at least precisely.  I've generally known where 
to aim, though, and just boresight the darn thing.  You can also use it 
as a hub connection, but I've never tried to configure that.

They also have systems that include a router - and one that uses TWO 
routers for tower mounting the outside unit above the trees...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Indoor-Outdoor-WiFi-Antenna-High-Gain-Repeater-/400176179629

The audio from the remote mixer would connect to the line-in of the 
laptop, and in this instance, using Oddcast / Edcast to encode the 
stream and Icecast2 to send it, maybe.

Couldn't sound WORSE than a cell connection, I think...  even if you 
encode as MP3... at 32 kbps... (mono should sound OK; 32 kbps should be 
plenty.)

Hope that helps!

KKTY wrote:
> Thinking out loud... if I have 1.) a basic laptop with 2.) an air card (Alltel, soon to be AT&T), can I take audio out off my sports kit, feed it to the mic input of the laptop, and use the laptop/aircard as a cell phone to dial back to the station & feed the game?
>  
> Is there another way to get audio back to the station via laptop/aircard combo, something like a private stream via Windows Media Encoder?

-- 
Tom Spencer
PG-18-25453 (nee' P1-18-48841)
http://radioxtz.com/