My current [05/09/2002] project involves the use of a Direct-Sequence spread spectrum radio link. After much um-ing and ah-ing, I've decided to use part of a wireless LAN chipset to do a lot of the hard work for me.
Having looked at Farnell, RS, and other distributors, and having talked to Intersil (formerly Harris) who make the WLAN chipset that I want (PRISM2), I discovered that the easiest way of getting my hands on the chips I wanted quickly was to buy a WLAN card.
(The MAC is about 20 pounds, the IQ modem about 15, and a WLAN card with them in about 50).
Anyhow, here it is, a Cisco AIR-PCM340 (Aironet 340 series).
Its WiFi certified, 2.4GHz DSSS (that's IEEE802.11b), supports data rates of 11, 5.5, 2 and 1Mbps, and doesn't do any WEP at all (there are other cards in the 340 series which do... I'd speculate that a firmware upload into the MAC chip would have it singing WEP in no time...).
Into the guts of the thing: (click on a picture for a big uncommented version)
On the MAC side:
And under that screening:
More on the MAC side(MAC chip now removed):
Here is the state it is in just before its assimilation into the collective (jpeg image 89kB (that's 87kiB for the computery people who think a kilobyte is 1024 bytes)).
