If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underlying infrastructure and then chronologically. You’ll also notice that within the section on wired networks, there are two sub-sections: one for electrical wire and another for barbed wire. Even though the barbed wire section is quite short, it was one of the most fascinating to research and write about – mostly because the history of using barbed wire to communicate is surprisingly long and almost entirely undocumented, even though barbed wire fence phones in particular were an essential part of early- to mid-twentieth century rural life in many parts of the U.S. and Canada!
↫ Lori Emerson
I had no idea this used to be a thing, but it obviously makes a ton of sense. If you can have a conversation by stringing a few tin cans together, you can obviously do something similar across metal barbed wire. There’s something poetic about using one of mankind’s most dividing inventions to communicate, and thus bring people closer together.
“” There’s something poetic about using one of mankind’s most dividing inventions to communicate, and thus bring people closer together. “”
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I used to play with my model train kit’s tracks with the old analog phone. It would build a circuit, and I would hear the “signals” from the train.
Well… it did not mean anything (was static noise), but it was fun for a small kid’s own experiment.
In real life, though, non-electric, non-disruptable phones are used on large naval ships. They work even if the ship systems are down, and you can communicate across different parts in an emergency.
I wonder if you could use that wire to propagate a normally “wireless” 802.11 protocol as a mesh network.
runciblebatleth
The wavelength of 2.4ghz is 12.5cm. Electric signals traveling through the barbed wire would emit EM radiation, but irregular endpoints and lengths would likely cause lots of random internal reflections causing distortions and the signal to interfere with itself creating odd propagation characteristics. My money’s on a simpler tuned antenna doing better 🙂
A very long barbed wire fence might be more interesting if you used very low frequencies.
It’s fascinating the ingenuity of people, and also how much cooperation between folks really enhances life for everyone.