[NLRS] Light wave communications

[John (JK) Kalenowsky, K9JK]

SO...is this topic more like "Remote Controls on Steroids"? ;-)

A start-up that I worked with briefly (about 10 years ago) 
developed a way of extending the IR link for Palm Pilots to be 
able to send info to ALL Palm Pilots in a classroom (possibly 
larger area...distances of up to 150 feet were achieved with 
full data bandwidth, not that the data rate/volume was that 
challenging/large), it was quite reliable in a classroom on the 
order of a couple of hundred square feet.

If my memory serves me correctly, each of the emitter units used 
about 300 Infrared LEDs (the sales rep at Arrow loved that 
order!). I don't recall how much the actual radiated power was 
for that. Also, it was scattered, the IR LEDs were on 4 separate 
panels in the emitter unit.

I never thought of it at the time BUT I wonder what might have 
been possible if the output of the 300 IR LEDs had been 
'focused' to a more directive path.

73, JK