On the ISP-Wireless list, Robert Canary links to a New Zealand Herald story about a new TV station in North Otago that's using a $10 kitchen wok to replace a $20,000 commercial transmitter.

"Volunteer Ken Jones designed the wok transmitter in his spare time last year when he wanted to provide wireless broadband to his Ardgowan home," the article states.

Jones and his friend Murray Bobbette determined that the curved face of a wok would have the same effect as a Satellite dish. "We have spent a lot of time getting it right -- the first time we installed one we had it up a pole with the handle still on the end of the wok," he says. "We had it connected to the woolshed, and initially you couldn't get a signal the width of the paddock, and now it can reach up to 20km."

When local TV station 45 South started up last year, Jones decided to apply the same solution. "The $20,000 for a commercial link was just money we didn't have, so we bought several woks from The Warehouse instead which was convenient and cheap," he says.

There's an in-depth breakdown of the technology available here.

More here from InformationWeek ... and more here from TVNZ.