Re: need guidance for a sparse wireless network

On Jan 10, 8:59 pm, urbantiger <urbantiger.330...@no-
mx.wirelessforums.org> wrote:
> I don't have any significant experience in setting up wireless networks,
> so I may use the wrong terms in what follows.
>
> In a small religious community in rural Australia, most of the
> residents are scattered in small single person dwellings (studio's) up
> to 2Km from the main "house". The main house has a satellite internet
> link and a Netgear wireless router which serves the two residents who
> live in that house. Other residents either have their desktop computers
> located in the main house, carry their laptops to the main house or use
> dial up (slow and expensive).
>
> I have established that studio's with clear LOS to the house can
> receive a wireless signal (up to 48Mbps) to a laptop with a Netgear USB
> wireless adapter if I am outside of the studio, in some cases on its
> roof. Because the house is situated at the high point of a ridge some
> studios don't have LOS at ground level to the house.
>
> What I'm thinking of doing it put an external aerial at each location
> with an Ethernet-802.11b/g bridge (hopefully with PoE). At the main
> house the bridge would be Cat 5'd to the Netgear router (only one of its
> Cat5 ports is used), at the studio's the bridges would be Cat5'd to the
> residents computer.
>
> - Would this work?
> - Are there other approaches I should consider?
> - What sort of bridge should I use?
> - What sort of aerials should I use?
> - Might I need to use multiple aerials at "the house" (omni
> directional for the closer studio's and a directional for each studio
> further away)?
> - Should I put bridges in roof (hence PoE) to minimize aerial cable
> length.
> - What about lightning arrestors, the area gets lots of storms ?
>
> Cost is a significant issue, so if I can assemble bridges and aerials
> from parts etc then I would consider doing that - although because I
> live 200Km away I have to consider support.
>
> Thanks in anticipation - Phil Daniels
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> View this thread:http://www.wirelessforums.org/showth...lessforums.org


Hi. Your setup sounds a bit like ours. I have 10 clients getting
internet through a sat dish at a central location on a remote
"ranch". The houses are spread around a 300 M radius, with two
distant ones 1 KM away.

I tried to find a way to use an antenna to distribute the signal
everywhere, but found that it was not possible get in all directions
at once as there is too much altitude variation for a high gain omni.
High gain omnis have very narrow vertical beamwidth.

So, going on excellent advice from here and elsewhere, the first thing
I did was determine which houses were within cabling distance or could
be powerline networked. Whenever possible, we ran cable or, in one
case, are doing a powerline network connection.

We asked each client to pay for their own connection extension,
whether it be cable or their local bridge/AP setup. That kept the cost
down for the community and each decides if they want the luxury or
not.

Cable is most reliable if you can do it. In cases where the end user
has a single desktop, we just ran the cable in. In cases where they
have laptop(s), we put an AP on the end of the cable at their house
and gave them their own personal wifi. In one case,there are now two
houses that operate off of the same AP on the end of a cable. The
cable allowed me to place the AP down low in the valley where those
two houses are.

In the direction where I had a cluster of houses and good line of
sight, I put a directional panel antenna on a pole (using a lightning
arrester). That antenna feeds three houses at about 300 meters,
allowing us to just use our laptops directly.

The most distant pair of houses don't get a strong enough signal, plus
trees block them. In that case, I put a wireless ethernet adapter up
on a pole in a 14db "Rootenna". I cabled that to a local AP that
covers those two houses, so they also have a wireless connection
around their houses.

For gear, I like using the Buffalo HP routers with DD-WRT replacement
firmware installed. WHR-HP-G54 or somesuch, I forget. They are not
currently sold in the US, but should be availible in Australia?

Also, the DD-WRT site sells these with DD-WRT pre-installed. Not
cheap at $100 US each, but saves trouble of installing and you get the
premium version of a very flexible and well support (by community)
firmware.

The Linksys WRT54GL (emphasis on the "L" model) will also take DD-
WRT and act as a client adapter/bridge, though it's not as powerful a
radio as the Buffalo HP.

A $40+ US Rootenna will get you a good 15 dbi antenna setup as well
as an outdoor box for the router to avoid lossy cable runs.

http://www.wlanparts.com/product/ZZ-...t_Antenna.html

For around $130-$180 USD, you can also use the Engenius EOC....or
NOC Outdoor AP/Client adapters. They are all-in-one units with
power over ethernet too.

http://www.wlanparts.com/product/EOC...m_source=GBASE


I also see that this site is offering Engenius cards installed in
Rootennas (higher gain):

http://www.wlanparts.com/product/ZZ-...__ZZCBROO.html

Again, the main point, is to consider multiple solutions, not just a
single approach.

There are a lot of details to deal with, but this should get you
started.

Cheers,
Steve