Wireless farm

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By David Hest

While technically feasible for years, building a farm-wide computer-based communications network has been expensive and technologically challenging.

Until now.

Today, with a start-up hardware investment of $600 or less (and a $30 to $60/month service fee), farmers across much of the U.S. can have a wireless farm — and a wireless world, for that matter. (They also will need a computer with cellular wireless broadband capability.)

The technological breakthrough that makes this feasible has been available for years. But it is just beginning to be harnessed in agriculture, after being adopted in the oil, mining and transportation industries and in other industries that operate in remote areas.

The breakthrough? Mobile cellular antennas, plus an amplifier. Together, they boost the reach of the cellular communications network enough to provide wall-to-wall broadband coverage in many areas. Cell-phone coverage also will get a boost, with broader coverage and fewer dropped calls.

Just ask Luke Lightfoot. For the past year, Lightfoot, a technology specialist with Co-Alliance, an ag co-op with 26 branches in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, has been testing the system in an area that spans 100 miles or more. He pronounces the test a success.

“The wireless farm is already built,” he says. “You just have to pay to use the service.”

Testing, testing
When the cooperative began testing the concept of business-wide mobile Internet-based communications a year ago, it was uncertain whether coverage in the most remote part of its trade area would be good enough. After testing the system with off-the-shelf antennas and amplifiers in six trucks, the co-op concluded the antenna/amplifier combination is up to the task.

As a result, this fall the co-op plans to double or triple the number of fertilizer rigs using the technology and expand the program to its entire service area, which spans 200 miles or more.

“We are trying to take baby steps to make sure the technology fits,” Lightfoot says. “Losing coverage was pretty rare, even in the tougher areas. Once or twice, they had to move away from woods to get coverage. But overall, the trucks were pretty much always connected.”

Booster basics
To achieve the enhanced signal it needed, Co-Alliance added omnidirectional antennas and wireless bidirectional amplifiers to each of the mobile rigs in its test. Compared to directional antennas, which often are used at fixed sites, omnidirectional devices are less powerful, but they can take in signals from any direction.

Antennas serve two functions. First, they take in the signal from the cellular tower. Second, they carry the signal (typically through a cable) into the cab, offsetting the signal degradation that typically occurs inside metal structures.