More than 600 municipal law enforcement agencies have helicopters for aerial surveillance and observation, but few of them have real-time video feeds for responders on the ground. The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office was one of those agencies. Although Greenville is South Carolina’s most populous county, and the Greenville Sheriff’s department has over 400 deputies and 100 additional employees, they still couldn’t get real-time video from their Bell OH58C helicopter to their mobile command center and responders in the field. Industry standard COTS microwave systems are expensive, require multiple towers, and line-of-sight transmission. Using an off-the-shelf microwave transmission system was not only cost prohibitive, it was a massive undertaking. Adequate coverage of Greenville County with a microwave system would have required finding, leasing, or erecting towers to cover 800 square miles. The only field alternative was a $10,000 handheld receiver that still required line-of-sight connection to the Helicopter.

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If you are ever having trouble sleeping, pick up an article on Digital Disruption. Instead of counting sheep you can count the jargon crammed into every sentence. Sentences with four or more nonsense words get a score of 2. Sentences earn an extra point when every single word is easily understood, but combine into gibberish. The points mean nothing and you don’t have to keep score; you will be asleep by the third sentence.

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Whether you are trying to connect to WiFi or cellular the right antenna is a primary factor determining success. Bundled antennas often deliver minimum performance required for ideal installations, but many factors can interfere with, or attenuate signal transmission.

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