Ok i was just informed that my stay at my sisters house will be ending in may. This means i lose my broadband service becuase im going to be staying in a trailer at my fathers. Problem is the property is at the end of a dirt road and the cable company does not find it economically fisable to run a line down the road for a couple people. They use one of those great studies that shows homes that can be built per acre and seeing as its (i think) 1 house to every 5 acres they wont do it. The phone company has a line that is DSL capable running to the house but the hardware that handles the area is to old and upgrading it is IN THE WORKS. ANyways onto teh wifi part. Ive found that the street has cable service on it and anyone who lives on it (i think) can get broadband. Only problem is im about 200 yards away from those anyones. So what i was wondering is what kind of setup would i need to make a wifi zone of about 200 yards(600 feet) that can handle atleast a 54mbs connection (i would hope for 108mbs or maybe even 802.11n). I was going to try and setup a pole or something on one of the peoples property(offering them free internet of course) that houses the equipment. If i can get this to work i might also be able to have some others neighboors connect to it ( they are closer) but i would like some way of a secureing it with a login process. Like the ones at some coffee shops where you pay for an hour and then it cuts you off. Im not sure if any of the people on the street would allow me to instal the system on there property but i dont want to go and ask them just to find out it will cost me hundreds or thousands of dollars just to instal the system. I wouldnt think 200 yards would be to hard and ive researched gains and all that ( still dont understand them) but i dont know what kind of antenna or Access point would be best (other then 500$ cisco setups).
A rangemax router/WiFi card setup with some tin-cans on a high-gain antenna (pointed in the right direction) will be perfect. Have a google around, and I'm sure you'll find someone who's already done it.
305 feet not meters. 100 metres is the maximum single segment length for ethernet over Cat5. You can, of course, have a much longer run of cat 5 if you are running a different protocol. Any omni antennae with a decent gain factor [say around 5 or more] will probably give you enough range between APs with a clear line of sight. Personally I'd be inclined to do AP to AP bridging rather than have a hotspot type arrangement mainly because a lot of laptop antennas are a bit crap and not easily replacable. HTH J
Or for a DIY approach follow my instuctable http://www.instructables.com/id/EQARE4I72GEPUCHTHU/ I have used it to connect to ap's over 1000 feet away so it should be just what you need. Any questions about it just shoot me a pm. And im also pretty sure jake meant a Uni directional antenna and not an omni seeing as uni is one direction and omi is all directions.
budget? got pics of the area? any hills around? 200 y is 182M correct? depending on how much you want to spend and what the terrain is like this is either easy or rather hard 802.11n will be harder as you need multiple antennas and defined spacing and such personally i would go for the easy method get 2 outdoor meraki(or similar wireless units(merakis are good because they are cheap and work and)) units and stick them up on the roof of the 2 buildings this should get 200M with the default antennas in clear air http://meraki.net/products/outdoor/ if need be stick a shiny antenna on it http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2412y.php with an rp-sma connector would do the job on both sides or if you want other people to connect to it you can use 2 8ish dbi omni antennas http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/antennas_2400_out_omni.php Now if you had a lot of money well a couple of good senao units with decent omni antennas or something like http://www.adiengineering.com/php-b...78&PHPSESSID=ae912a535e21613b00fb63ce068e19f2 if you don't feel like paying the premium for the outdoor version you can mod up your own http://www.phaster.com/golden_hill_free_web/ has some very nice designs further down the page
Nah I did mean omni, if he intends to connect some of the neighbours to it he'll need point to multipoint rather than point to point which is easier to acheive with an omni rather than a patch or yagi type directional or even a sector antennae. Decent exterior omnis with a gain of around 6db will happily talk via LoS for ranges into miles if you drop the data rate back and will even give you 54Mbps over around a quarter of a mile [you hardly need 54Mbps if all you're doing is hooking up to a DSL/cable connection running at less than 10Mbps]. Generally speaking tho you only do this in bridge mode from AP to AP with similar antennae fitted since a normal laptop antennae can see the signal from the AP but is incapable of putting out enough power such that the AP can see it. J
yeah, that doesn't sound to be all that much of a problem wireless wise. Running a long CAT cable may cause problems with mains phase or whatever from the power socket... Not really tested that too much. Personally I would beg someone to let you connect in exchange for free internet. Put a 5 port router in their house. Few ports for them. 1 port going to an access point in bridge mode - connect that to a uni-directional antenna pointed at your place. Another accesspoint there with a uni antenna pointed at their place. Connect that to a small switch, plug one cable into your computer and another into a FON hotspot so that your neighbours can connect to it (or a normal access point if you don't mind them connecting for free). Parabolic dishes go up to 30dB and have a range at 54Mbs for miles (well, it's never REALLY 54 is it?!?)... so a few 100 yards isn't an issue. A patch antenna might be the best option if you're having to put it in someone elses home though. Steer away from MIMO and wireless n - as that will give you grief needing more than one antenna. Also, if you go the access point bridge method - look for firmware to increase the output of the ariel (Linksys WAPs definately have this). If you've got two both kicking out more wattage they will talk to each other fine.
recently i soldered an old tv ariel to my old router in the garden,for an experement and it was better signal than sitting next to the router in my house!!
