Re: Long distance wireless network setup question

Flatshovel <Flatshovel.2u3fnh@no-mx.wirelessforums.org> hath wroth:

>I am trying to share out a high speed
>connection with my neighbor that lives next to me. From my house to
>his is only 850ft.

850ft is quite a distance for Wi-Fi and will surely require external
antennas, probably at both ends.

>However there is a buffer of trees in the way that
>is about 50ft thick.

Thick trees? Thin trees? Can you see *UNDER* the foliage canopy by
the trunks? Can you see anything through the trees? It's a big
stretch but some trees are thin or widely spaced so that some RF will
make it through. In any case, you need some line of sight.

There's also another problem you're going to have to deal with called
the Fresnel Zone. You really need MORE than line of sight at 2.4GHz.
See calculator at:
<http://www.terabeam.com/support/calculations/fresnel-zone.php>
At 850ft, you'll need to have 7.4 ft clearance at midpoint. That also
means that both antennas need to be at least 7.4 ft off the ground. If
the ground isn't level, it has to be higher.

>However there is a big metal shop in my back yard
>that is 325ft from my house. From the shop there is a opening in the
>trees to where I can see my neighbors house clear (nothing in way of
>line of sight).

Ok, so I didn't read the rest of your posting before I started to
reply. The previous stuff is not directly applicable if you're going
to do this in two hops, but it's still relevant.

>The distance between the shop and a outbuilding on his
>property is about 450ft. My question is can I put a router at my house,
>get the signal to the shop with a bridge unit and then to my neighbors
>house.

Yes, quite easily with proper antennas. If you have the neighbors
cooperation, and need to buy new hardware, I suggest using a WDS
bridge or repeater. Linksys WRE54G works fairly well with Linksys
equipment. What hardware do you and the neighbor already own?

>I have seen some claims of outdoor range of up to 1500ft
>outdoors. The units will be housed on the outside of the buildings in
>a watertight wooden box. Would this setup work? Here is a drawing of
>how the property is laid out and what I am trying to do.
>Joey[image: http://www.geocities.com/charlesiiii/drawing.jpg]

Yech. You might want to make the drawing readable and sized to the
typical screen (1024x768). Many of the 1500 ft claims don't bother to
specify at what speed. As the signal gets weaker, the wireless radios
slow down. You might end up with 1500ft, but at only 1Mbit/sec.

It's difficult to tell but can you get line of sight from the Gazebo
to the house?

I'm trying to decode your scribbling and see if there's any way to
avoid using 4 radios. I don't see it right now. Basically, you would
have a radio at both sides of the 50ft wide tree line acting as a
repeater. That's kinda expensive but will work. All it is are two
back to back access points, on different channels, with different
SSID's, and using a bit of antenna gain (8-12dBi). The problem is
that it's expensive. Each box will cost about $60. You also need 4
antennas at about $40/ea. That $400 which methinks would be better
spend avoiding wireless in this case.

Can you bury any cable between the two houses? 850ft isn't that far
for 10baseT CAT5 or 10base2 RG-58a/u. I don't wanna go into detail
unless you're interested in doing it this way. 1000ft of buriable
CAT5 will cost about $200. At each end, you install a 10baseT hub
(not a switch). That's it.

Otherwise, you can possibly run CAT5 from your house to the shop.
Wireless to the Gazebo. Then more CAT5 to the neighbors house. Lots
of other options, but I can't really tell what will work without a
better map.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558