I would like to thank my committee members for serving on my committee. I would like to thank all of my colleagues at IIHR for their input, especially Dr. Jim Niemeier for helping me to understand the architecture of the soil moisture network that was previously deployed in Ames, Hamid Fahim Rezaei for discussing various communications topics that helped me to come up with new ideas, and Nick Sitter for his help with the parasitic power circuit, the build of the first hardware prototype, and advice on using the ATTiny45 chip. I would also like to thank IIHR for their financial support during the time that I was working on this project. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Anton Kruger, for his support. This development would not have happened if it were not for his ideas and our many long discussions about the fundamental issues of implementing this type of network. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.