Long link to campus wifi

Hi,

I wondering if it was possible

I live about .4 mil (~ .65 km) from campus and was wondering if I could connect to the campus network from my house.

Basically, I want to receive the campus wifi signal and broadcast it around my house.

I know there are high gain antennas that supposedly allow you to connect to wifi networks about a mile away or more. However, most of the setups I've read about have you connect the wifi antenna to a wireless card through an N-connector and pigtail. Isn't there an antenna I can use to just receive and repeat the campus signal throughout my house?

This guy seems to want to do the same thing: Cantenna to Airport Express On Campus - CNET Networking & wireless Forums

Basically, his last post suggest getting a router with two antennas, and replacing one of the antennas with a high gain wifi antenna for 'receiving'. The other antenna will be used repeat the signal.

Is that the best way to go (ie. using a router as a middle man) ? Isn't there an antenna that will both receive and trasmit the campus signal?

1) If I should go the router way, which router should I get? Definitely, it seems, a router with two antennas that supports repeating out of the box or through an open source firmware like DD-Wrt or Tomato. Does G or N matter?

2) Also, which wifi antenna should I get or make (if its easy enough)? This is the most confusing to me. There seem to be all type of antennas: directional & omni-directional; cantenna types and parabolic dishes.

I was thinking of simply getting the Super Cantenna (WiFi Antenna-Super Cantenna Wifi Booster Antenna) which is supposed to be 12 dbi. Is that good enough? Is dbi the only measure of gain? I mean this video (Practically Free DIY WiFi Antennas - Systm) shows how to make 6 dbi or 12 + dbi antenna using household materials.

I was getting ~11 Mbps connection on campus. Can I hope to get something close to this in my house with good equipment?

Also, as for security, uni supports both an unsecure and secure connection. Ideally, I'd like to connect to the secure one which used WPA2-Enterprise, AES, Microsoft: Protected EAP(PEAP) (network authentication method).

Can you guys point me in the right direction with this project?

The best and most professional way to do what u wanna do and also save on cost is to buy an indoor/outdoor AP CB device and a wireless home router.
An EOC 2611P from engenius is a high power radio device that u can use in bridging the campus signal when configured as a client bridge, at a very good and strong signal strength and then u can use a router to rebroadcast the signal all over your home wirelesssly without losing speed and throughput because doing or using repeaters will definitely cut your speed and throughput into half.

Engenius Tech, Inc. for the radios and routers.

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated.

From my understanding, the EOC 2611P will receive the campus signal, and then I will have to connect the EOC 2611P with a CABLE to a router right? And then the router will rebroadcast the signal. I was wondering how this is different from repeating? Won't there still be signal loss?

Isn't there an all-in-one device that will both receive (ie act as a client bridge) from a long distance and then wirelessly transmit? (acting as an access point?) Would such a device be too expensive?

If I connect a router to the EOC 2611P, which one should I use? I'm not sure if the standard home networking router will give a powerful enough connection throughout the house.

What if I just used the ecb3500 instead of the EOC 2611P (I saw you suggesting it in http://www.wirelessforums.org/hardwa...on-101157.html ) Then, I can set it repeater mode right? Will the 5dbi gain of the ecb3500 be enough to pick up campus signal?

Or instead of a EOC 2611P and an ecb3500, how about two EOC 2611P ?

Yes the eoc2611P will only receive the signal from the campus network and the router wil only be needed if u wanna wirelessly broadcast the signal all over your honme.
but if u dont wanna have wireless in your home then the eoc2611P will just do for your connection without any signal loss.

This is quite different from repeater cos u have a client bridge which only receives the network and a a wireless router will does the rebroadcasting. whereas repeater device will be one device which receives the network signal and also sends out the signal on the same device.

The eor7550 can do both job of receiving and transmitting as it has 2 independent radios, it can also do repeater function. visit Engenius Tech, Inc. and read up on the manuals.

Yea u are right, a regular home router might not be strong enough to cover a house. u can use the ecb3500 instead and configure it as an AP Router.

using the ecb3500 only to connect to the campus network might not work vry well due to the gain of the antenna which is very poor and also its never good to do repeater configurations on a network unless if its very necssarycos doing so will cut into half the speed and throughput of all clients connected wirelessly.

instead of using 2 eoc2611P then i will suggest u use 1 eor7550 as it already has 2 independent radios on the unit, the only thing there is that using the eor7550 will require using 2 high gain external antennas, a 24dbi grid antenna for receiving the signal, and a 15dbi omni antenna for rebroadcasting the signal.

Thanks for your ongoing help simacoltd.

So here are the options I'm considering:


Receives input for campus wifi-------------------Rebroadcasts throughout home

1) EOC2611P (10 dbi internal antenna, 600mW) + EOC2611P (10 dbi internal antenna, 600mW)
2) EOC2611P (10 dbi internal antenna, 600mW) + ECB3500 (5dbi antenna, 600mW)
3) EOR7550 (600mW, 300Mbps, but Radio 1 needs external atenna, Radio 2 has built in "6dbi simulated omni antenna")

It seems to me that the two eoc 2611p connected together (one as client bridge, other as AP) will be best for me as that will give a 10dbi input antenna and 10dbi output antenna. What do you think?

The only downside I see to that setup is that the EOC2611P's antennas are directional. That means it won't distribute throughout the house right? If so, what's a better option:

a) Stick to the ECB3500 instead of the EOC2611P router to distribute the wireless throughout my house
b) Use the EOC2611P for output but get an omnidirectional antenna.

For me i will opt for the option (b) using eoc2611P for output but with a 15dbi external omni antenna.
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