Setting up a wireless connection

Well im a total newb when it comes to wireless, so i need your opinions on how i could set this up...

Well basically i want to set up a wireless connection between my house and a friends place. (for file sharing).
My house is about 10m higher than his and there would be other houses in the way (ill go up on the roof and check sometime soon).
So my question is, how would I go about setting this up?

whare about do yuo live ie nz or other country
if you could get a good connection and you could get over the roof tops of the other house you could use a couple of asscesspoints in client or bridge mode & a couple of panel 14 or 18dbi panel antennas or 2 24dBi grid antennas mounted on the roof

Provided line of sight is good a couple of 15dBi grid or patch antennas along with standard bridge-capable access points will do the trick. This includes the Linksys WAP45G, D-Link DWL-2100AP, plus mmany others and even the vunerable Linksys WRT54G with third party firmware.

Such a short range setup is usually pretty foolproof, just watch the length on the antenna cables. Don't fall into the classic trap of running an instrastructure (access point to client) type network to join two sites, make sure the APs are bridge capable before purchasing.

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Jeremy

Marlborough WiFi Project

forgive my ignorance, but would it be possible to do that without the access points? just connect the ant's up to the wireless pci card?

In theory this is possible, by setting up an ad-hoc network. In practice I think you will run into speed or reliability problems doing this though.

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Jeremy

Marlborough WiFi Project

Im trying to find the cheapest way possible, any suggestions?

try just two WRT54G's using DD-WRT firmware or similar and setup WDS, just stick the MAC address of the opposite unit in each radio then see if that works over a couple of hundred meters just on the dipoles, it will have to be wide open spaces though
Try a couple of cheap panel antennas after that

Im in the Bucklands Beach area, Im wondering if there are any open community wireless connections here that i could connect too. Does anyone know of any?

hell yeh thats where andrew lives, call or surf BorgWiFi :: Wireless and Internet provider... or look for ssid BorgWifi I think
Dan

Looking at the site it seems you have to pay, or is that only if you want internet access? Im trying to find something that me and this other person can connect to and share files between computers.

Thanks for all advice so far

best if you give andrew a call or a quick email, he will be able to tell you if you can just pay a low monthly maintainance fee to use the network for file sharing without internet, but at the rates that Andrew normally sell internet for you should sign up for one of his great internet plans too
if you can see each other, just put some gear up and point it at each others units.

Dan

Does anyone know if it is possible to add an external antenna to this card?
TP-Link 108mbps SuperG Wireless PCI Adapter - XP COMPUTER WAREHOUSE LTD

thanks

yer definately, looks like a MMC connection or something
or R-SMA

First of all you should check the model of the TP link network card as they have 2 models 1 with detachable antenna and 1 without. if it is the 1 with the detachable antenna then yes you can.