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Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by mxuribe on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @04:50PM (#24425762)
I'm certainly not an expert of electricity nor radio nor microwave emitters, and such...And, the approach here sounds really amazing...But would a heavy enough downpour of rain act as a strong enough obstruction to trigger the lasers? In essence would weather - at least precipitation - have a negative impact here?
Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by Emrod on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @07:39PM (#24427255)
Using 2.4GHz-5.5GHz means minimal (if any) weather related interference. Rain wont have any effect...unless its heavy enough to bring down the antennas. but thats going to be an issue for any outdoors structure such as pylons or communication towers.
Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by etimberg on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @08:43PM (#24427713)
If you are using 2.4 GHz, how are you remaining in the near field yet extending the distances out to many km?

At 2.4GHz, λ is approximately 0.125m. Since the wavelength is small, the antenna is likely to be "electromagnetically long", i.e. the size of the antenna is of comparable size to the wavelength.

The edge of the near field in this case is defined by the Fraunhofer Distance [0][1]. Let's assume we want the edge of the near field to be 1km away. Running that through the Fraunhofer distance equation to compute the largest dimension of the radiator, we get ~7.9m. That's huge. For 10km it is 25m.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_and_far_field#Electromagn...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_distance

Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by bigiain on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @08:38PM (#24427683)
MW of power in 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands???

Are you gonna screw with my WiFi way over here in Sydney?

;-)

Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by mxuribe on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @09:10PM (#24427866)
That's interesting! I guess when i read:

> ...system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on...

I guess i assumed any obstruction would suffice in triggering the lasers...but now re-reading it, maybe the obstruction has to be more significant.

Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by 867-5309 on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @05:36PM (#24426201)
good question. also, would it be affected by other elemental forces such as strong wind, snow (rural NZ!), earthquakes, temperature, the gamut of the sun's output, etc.

would also like to know if/how it will affect mobile phone towers

Re:New Zealand is about to test long-range wireless power tr... by mxuribe on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @06:43PM (#24426753)
Oh wow, I hadn't thought of earthquakes or even mobile phone towers!