New and need help please.

Hello!

I was hoping that some one could help me with my lack of knowledge on wifi boosters and antennas.

My prob. is that i need my wifi signal to go further than it does. See, my parents own a campground and we have just a regular broadband router. We want to give the campers wifi access around our building though and this router just isn't doing it. We want to be able to make the signal go around 600 feet all the way around our building.
Ive looked around on the net at amplifiers, boosters, and different antennas only to be confused. : (

Hopefully you guys can give me a hand on this!

BTW - we are on a 2nd story house, so getting an antenna up high isn't a prob.
And the router were using now is a Linksys Wireless-G 2.4ghz 54mbps

Thank you!

Mike~

You would need a much bigger Omni Directional Antenna located central to the camp, I think you would be better looking at some better equipment though, you may not be able to acheive what you want using consumer grade hardware. But everyone loves a trier!

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Probably better than a single elevated omni would be a circle of sector antennas (such as are frequently seen on cell phone towers) pointed down at the campground. Omni antennas reach far to the sides, but don't do a good job covering the space below them.

You would need to have it high enough to have a clear shot to every metal box in the campground. Wifi would not penetrate any sheet metal trailer blocking the way, and it will probably barely even get through the trees. Fortunately, 600 feet is a lot more realistic than what many people hope for.

Your amplifier should be bi-directional, meaning that it amplifies the incoming signal as well. The weak link in your system will probably be the laptops of the campers, whose built-in wifi transmitters aren't going to be very strong.

Well, i guess good thing is that my house is right in the middle of the campground, so thats no prob. to get it in the central part.
What equipment should i be looking at getting?

Thanks!

Thank you for this great reply!
Where our house is located in the campground there arent very many trees RIGHT next to it so it has a good space that its all open area in.

Would you be able to recommend any antennas to look for, or any links to them? Same for the amplifier..

And do you need a special license for certain amplifiers? Someone told me that if its like a 1 watt or more amp. that you have to have some license for it.

Thanks again for the reply's, its greatly appreciated!

Mike~

You shouldn't need more than a 1 watt amp. Even though the amp would also increase the incoming signals from laptops, you'll still want most of your gain to come from good antennas, in order to have a clean quality signal from them.

A sector antenna is like this:
2443 - 2.4 GHz, 12 dBi, 120 Degree Sector Wireless LAN Antenna

And if you're handy, you can make your own:
Sector antenne voor Wifi ISM band (2,4GHz)

Three of this type would give you the complete 360 degrees of coverage.

Other designs have higher gain, yet you might need 4 or 5 to get full coverage.

Here's what commercial arrays go for:
2.4 GHz Sectorized Omnidirectional Array

You could save up to a thousand $US by making your own antennas and crimping your own cables. You'll probably have to buy the splitters and amplifier. 2.4 GHz 802.11b 802.11g Compatible Outdoor Wi-Fi® Amplifiers for Wireless LAN Solutions

If you don't expect more than a dozen or so customers online at one time, your Linksys router would probably work just fine for handling the traffic.

Most likely, you'll have a few customers that can't get a good connection unless they park in the very best spots, due to the weakness of their wifi hardware. Some sites might just be dead because of the trees. It's just something you'll have to expect and accept.

I'm not going to recommend any brands or dealers, because my experience is limited.

Thanks for the links!

Im looking at the commercial ones. The first one on that page that is $650.00

What i don't get is what the difference between that one and the most expensive one on there..
I see the only difference is the dbi....should i be very concerned about this?

If that set-up will work for what we want to do (600 foot 360* radius) then thats the one that i will get. I just want to make sure that it will meet our needs.

Im looking at the different amplifiers...and don't know what type i need eather

If someone could help me out on that also that would be awesome!

One more question. How high should these antennas go? and do we want them pointing at where we want them to hit, or will it just automatically go as far as it can?

BTW - Our budget is around $1,600
O, and we prob. wont need another router. There shouldn't be more(or to many more) than 12 people on at a time...if we find that we have a prob. with that though, we will just upgrade our router later.

Thanks again for everyone that has helped! You are really helping out and im very grateful!

Thank you!

Mike~

For each 3 dbi, the antenna power is doubled, so there is a noticable difference between 14 dbi and 17 dbi. However, the higher gain antennas also have a narrower vertical coverage, so there could be a weak area right under the tower array. This could be made up for by using a more powerful omni antenna on the Linksys router's other antenna port, raised up no higher than 10-15 feet.

Will the 14 dbi antennas be enough? Maybe you should call the manufacturer and give them a detailed description of the obstacles it must overcome, and get their opinion. There is less of a price difference between 14 and 17 dbi with the three-antenna models: 2.4 GHz Sectorized Omnidirectional Array

I can't remember enough basic geometry to tell you exactly how high to place the antenna array, but about twice as high as the tallest camper would probably be fine. Then you'll want to tilt the antennas down toward the perimiter of the 600 ft. radius. You'll want a well-grounded tower, of course, and one of these gas discharge protectors on the cable between the amp and the array: Coaxial Lightning and Surge Protectors

The amp you get should be outdoor quality, between 1/4 and 1 watt, and support 2.4 GHz 802.11G and 802.11B. It'll probably be about $120-$200. You might find a grey-market 2 watt amp, but why fry your router with noise?

If you do all this, the rest of the burden for connection will fall upon the campers. If they really expect to get strong wifi in the great outdoors, they should get external directional antennas for their computers.

Thanks for that info and answering my question!

We are plaining on contacting the manufacture early next week.

One prob. that I think we have though is all the trees. About 400 feet of that 600 foot radius were wanting is trees to the left and right of our house. directly behind it and in front of our house is open. But the rest is all very tall trees.

I know that they are going to be a problem... is there ANY way that we can work around them?

I was looking around on the internet and different antennas. I was thinking, what if we got a the omni-directional ones for our house and all the open area. Then for in the woods, put a directional antenna pointing straight into the woods, at another omni-directional antenna that will then be in the center of the woods.

If this doesn't make scene i can do a crappy drawing of it for you.


Thank you,
Mike~

Another access point would reach further than extended antenna cable.

Something like this:

11mbps Outdoor Wireless Access Point with PoE Outdoor Wireless Access Point with PoE, long range outdoor access point, outdoor AP, outdoor ap, wifi access point, integrated access point, integrated ap, wifi cpe device, long range client device