Re: wifi hotspot in the garden

bosaland wrote:
> Hi!
> Having read through numerous forums and web sites without finding
> anyone who seems to have the same problem as me, i am posting on your
> forum in the hope that someone can help me.
>
> I live in a valley in sardinia which has recently provided internet
> coverage via wireless. The local reseller visited my land (which is
> just outside the town), checked line of site to the transmitter on the
> hill...OK, checked signal strength...OK, so i went ahead and signed up
> for the internet package.
> A week later a box arrived with a Osbridge 5Xli CPE - this has an
> ethernet cable and a POE adaptor. I plugged the cable into the network
> pci card in my main desktop pc (which happens to be fitted in my
> motorhome parked on the land!).... and there i was connected to the
> internet! So far so good.
> As the summer came it became too hot to work in the motorhome so i
> decided to try and create a wifi hotspot so i could work on my laptop
> in the shade.
> I contacted the reseller who sold me the internet package and he said
> that he could provide the necessary hardware for the job. A week later
> he arrived with what turned out to be a home made outdoor AP that did
> not work! Since then he has been 'unavailable' and i have had to look
> elsewhere.
> I then spent days scouring the interent for advice on the right
> product and ended up buying the following from a company called
> solwise.co.uk: AWOS-2400050 Outdoor Mesh AP
> WBIG-104GR Wireless Router
> This kit arrived and i plugged it all together...the the CPE into the
> WAN port on the router and the AP into the first LAN port on the
> router. I switched it on and ...it all seemed to work - i could
> connect to the internet on my laptop which was running XP and had an
> old dlink DWL-650 pcmcia card (11Mbs). The signal strength showed
> good to excellent (30metres line of sight to the outdoor antenna)...
> BUT... when i tried to use some of the high bandwidth sites
> (webcasting, you tube etc) i noticed a loss in speed and much
> buffering going on.
> I then looked at the literature that came with the products and saw
> that you can enter an ip address to configure them..... and that is
> where i am now!
> I dont feel technically competent to change any of the parameters and
> would be gratefull to anyone who could guide me.
> My main areas of concern are:
> Hardware - are the boxes i have bought providing the best solution?
> how do i configure them to ensure that i am using the full bandwidth
> available? Are there any bottle necks - do i need to upgrade my pcmcia
> card?
>
> There are other questions but thats enough for now!
>
> Thanks
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/network-troubleshooting/wifi-hotspot-garden-29720.html
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Hate to say it, but it's probbaly that silly mesh ap repeater thing.. The
good to excellent is ONLY the signal between your laptop and the (mesh) AP,
not overall to the internet itself... do some ping tests...
and just to narrow it down, do the same test from inside connecting direct,
instead of to the new mesh/repeater (not exact, but rule of thumb, repeater
cuts the speed in half, and mesh cuts the speed in half... so since you have
both, you are probably getting about 1/4 speed from that ap)..

From your own post, it seemed to work at an okay speed BEFORE you added the
mesh repeater ap into the mix.... wouldn't it make sense to prove it to
yourself that it's that one piece, and consider where to go from there? (you
are talking about replacing the card in the laptop, but it worked inside, it
only doesn't work at speed outside.. so what makes you think it may be the
pcmci card instead of the mesh repeater part?)