On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 04:21:27 -0600, wrote:

On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 19:18:58 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
Duz this neighbor have high speed internet? If so, a point to point
wireless link will get you internet.

No, they are Amish. Almost all my neighbors are Amish, except for one
very old retired farmer who I doubt even knows what the internet is.

The modern equivalent of the Amish are people who claim to be
"electro-sensitive". A former lady friend was like that. I didn't
recognize the similarity until now. Thanks for the hint.

I can not see it from my rooftop. There is a woods between my house and
the road. But even without the trees, I could not see the town, unless I
drive to the top of the hill (I live in a valley). My land ends at
almost the top of the hill, and I can probably see the town if I was to
climb a tree, or even stand on top of a full hay wagon full of hay. But
if I go another 50 or 70 feet higher (up the private road), I can easily
see town.

I suspect that the aesthetics of a 50ft radio tower would be a show
stopper with the local planning department. However, if you can get
past that, you would end up with a radio tower with one end of a 2.4
or 5GHz wireless bridge with the other end in town with someone who
has high speed internet. Ideally, the backhaul from the tower to your
house would be buried cable or fiber, but can also be wireless. More
commonly, there's a 2nd wireless radio on the tower to distribute
internet to the neighbors, but that doesn't seem to be a requirement
here.

You lost me, when you started talking about "point to point wireless
link, and WISP".

WISP is "Wireless Internet Service Provider". It's just like a
conventional cable or telco service providers, but without the wires.
Instead of you building the tower and negotiating for sharing
broadband, the WISP does this for you.

Point to point wireless is basically a wireless bridge. I'll spare
you the details, but here's an example:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/122182834424
Think of it as an ethernet network extension cord without wires.

I was looking at those cellphone boosters on ebay. Since I can get a
semi-usable signal on the roof, I thought about putting a yagi antenna
on my tv antenna tower and running that into the house. Part of my
problem is having a house with metal siding and roof.

The legality of some of those boosters are questionable. They're also
expensive. I have one made by zBoost. Of course, I couldn't resist
tearing it apart and looking inside:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/zBoost/

The cell company in the area said they were
planning to build a new tower. (But from what I have heard from the
locals, they said that same thing 10 years ago). Nothing has changed.

I had a talk last year with the local Verizon engineer about new site
construction. He casually mentioned that they typically have about
2,000 new sites in progress at any time in Northern California. That
doesn't mean they're building these sites, just at some step in the
process, such as getting approvals from the local councils, boards,
and agencies. If they meet any resistance from citizens groups, that
site goes to the bottom of the list, and they continue working on
those where the locals want a cell site installed. He mentioned that
there were several sites where the locals offered to subsidize the
construction in order to get cellular service. I suspect your
cellular company meet some resistance from the local Amish, and just
walked away.

I hate having to cope with dialup, and worse yet, I can not establish a
decent connection using my US RObotics modem on any computer with
Windows XP.

I used that combination for many years until I was able to get DSL. It
should work. I wrote this during that era to test phone lines using
USR modems:
http://members.cruzio.com/~jeffl/aty11/aty11.htm

I may be emailing you soon....

I was afraid that might happen.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558