Newbie here, could someone please advise

Hi all,

I am a wireless novice, but relatively technically competent
otherwise.

I want to set up a wireless LAN link between two nearby buildings.
It's not easy to find out exactly what I need and I hope this group
can offer some advice.

Essentially I work from home, in an office in my flat, with wired
broadband. I also look after the flat nearby of a friend, who works
abroad so isn't there often and doesn't have a landline.

When building work gets too noisy I use his flat as an office. Major
building work is planned nearby for later this year and it's going to
be pretty horrible. So I want to link to his flat so I can decamp
there for the period of the building, and obviously when he's around
he'd find the internet useful.

LOS distance between the two flats = 360 feet. There are a few trees
which will soon have foliage on them.

What I think I need is two wireless routers, a length of co-ax antenna
cable, and to make an external antenna to fit on the outside of my
flat. Is this right? Will I also need a receiving antenna on his
flat?

Your thoughts would be much appreciated

thanks

Julian

On Apr 11, 3:53 pm, projectst...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am a wireless novice, but relatively technically competent
> otherwise.
>
> I want to set up a wireless LAN link between two nearby buildings.
> It's not easy to find out exactly what I need and I hope this group
> can offer some advice.
>
> Essentially I work from home, in an office in my flat, with wired
> broadband. I also look after the flat nearby of a friend, who works
> abroad so isn't there often and doesn't have a landline.
>
> When building work gets too noisy I use his flat as an office. Major
> building work is planned nearby for later this year and it's going to
> be pretty horrible. So I want to link to his flat so I can decamp
> there for the period of the building, and obviously when he's around
> he'd find the internet useful.
>
> LOS distance between the two flats = 360 feet. There are a few trees
> which will soon have foliage on them.
>
> What I think I need is two wireless routers, a length of co-ax antenna
> cable, and to make an external antenna to fit on the outside of my
> flat. Is this right? Will I also need a receiving antenna on his
> flat?
>
> Your thoughts would be much appreciated
>
> thanks
>
> Julian

As a first guess, both APs would likely benefit from directional
antennas
coupled w/coax, as high as possible on both buildings, with the second
AP
able to be configured to run in bridge mode. Of course, directional
antenna
at your place may make wireless connection there problematic, unless
maybe you also install an additional AP there (w/its omnidirectional
antenna),
with its WAN port connected via ethernet to bridge port on the router
with the Internet connection.

Given that a typical "wireless router" is an AP, a bridge, and a
router. Given
an understanding of how IP routing works, it'd not be difficult to
"daisy-chain"
them. Bridging and routing operate at two distinct levels of
networking, with
bridging occurring transparently between cable-ports and wirelessly
connected
hosts at a given "router"; for routing you'd have to configure 2
distinct subnets,
by IP address range, on the two chained routers, and configure the
wirelessly
bridged routers to have the same LAN IP range but issue IPs from
separate
subranges of that range via DHCP.

There are many good references on wireless IP setup at Amazon, etc.

Mostlikely your major issue would be getting good s/n past the trees.
Alternatively, is there any way to run cat-5 cable between buildings?

HTH,
J

>
> Mostlikely your major issue would be getting good s/n past the trees.
> Alternatively, is there any way to run cat-5 cable between buildings?

Yep.

The trees are a big question, but distance is not very far.
One can sometimes get through a couple of trees, depending. Maybe
one. Maybe not!

If you can run Cat-5, then go for that.


As far as devices, antennas, etc, I see three routes, increasing in
cost but with advantages:

1) Single AP/router at your place with a directional antenna mounted
outside (via low-loss cable) and then a simple USB adapter on the
distant end with a good antenna or in a reflector and a 15' extension
cable.

I would consider using this USB adapter with a cheap 5db rubber duck
antenna and an EZ-12 refector
http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?...6&cat=0&page=1

2) AP and external antenna as above, with a wireless ethernet bridge
and external antenna on the distant end, using high gain antenna and/
or reflector

3) Same as 1 or 2 above, but mount your router on each end in one or
two of these instead of antenna + cable.
http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?...2&cat=0&page=1


Steve

Thanks for your replies. This has given me food for thought. CAT5 is
unfortunately not an option. It would be me digging up the public
roads in between and I think somebody would object!

I hadn't realised that the directional antenna might not broadcast to
my flat...silly me, but some of them have two antennas - I'd just
connect the external antenna to one. In any case roaming isn't too
important as I have a wired network in my place

The trees are a problem but I guess the only way to find out is to
"suck it and see".

Thanks again for the advice and links

cheers

Julian