] When Meng's dad, a radio frequency engineer, looked at
] the test-run data he said, "Oh my God. They might have a
] chance at this. They might actually have to go to Las
] Vegas."
]
] Not without Justin's father, however. Greg Rigling drove
] them across the country in a van, with the 10-foot
] satellite dish strapped to a trailer. Then he spent two
] days driving around Nevada's mountains helping them get a
] signal.

The wifi shootout concept is kind of silly. The guy who can buy the best antenna wins, and you've got a bunch of people running around with antennas that they constructed without reading anything about antennas. It ought to be obvious that parabolic dishes are the right answer.

However, the fact that these teenagers managed to get an unamplified consumer wireless card communicating across 55 miles of desert with old C-band dishes is cool in a DIY kind of way. It means that anyone with line of sight can build a long distance wireless backbone, and cheap.

Wired News: Wi-Fi Shootout in the Desert