I ordered a 532nm that puts out around 200-300mW for 10 mins at a time.
I have been setting up my community for internet service using wireless radios (CPE). There are a couple of customers who are about 1/4 mile or so from the antenna. However, there are a few trees in the way, or rather, the tops of the trees. From their roof, I cannot see my own antenna, and they are getting slightly below average signal strength which lets me know the tops of the trees are in the way. If the whole tree was in the way, they'd have almost no signal. With the terrain, I can't make it out properly by sight alone.
What I will be doing is around dusk or night, I will point the laser from their roof near the antenna to my access point. I will have an observer on the ground give me an estimate as to how high above the access point the laser beam is just before it is blocked by the trees.
Even up to 1 mile away, will the beam still be visible overhead? I think the beam divergence is about 0.9 - 1.0 mRad.
I will be using this for getting line of sight, but I'm wondering if I need this power to get up to a mile of good visibility, or if I went overkill and added unnecessary danger. I don't mind the extra power since it makes the laser more versatile.