Wireless Network Setup Question

Status
Not open for further replies.

Flatshovel

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2004
Messages
149
Location
North Carolina
I have a question regarding setting up a wifi network between my house and my moms house since she does not have high speed internet and would allow me to extend my network to her house that way i can use it there as well. We only live 1 mile apart but do not have line of site between each other. There are some pine trees between us. The signal has to pass through the corner of a pine tree forest and then over another area with trees as well but not quite as dense as the forest just a row of trees matter of fact. I was thinking about setting up a 16db yagi at each end hooked to a regular wireless router running about 28dbm of power. I planned on using ddwrt on the routers on each end. I am able to get the antenna up about 20ft on one end and about 30ft on the other. Just wondering if I use a yagi on each end will I be able to make the link work? Would the yagi antenna work or do I need something else like a parabolic disk type antenna or maybe a flat panel antenna? Do you guys think that it will work, if not please offer suggestions on what might work. Also if the routers would not be enough power would a amp on each one work better? Trying to set this up without spending a lot of money.

Thanks,
Joey
 

ffemt601

Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
159
Location
MS
I have a question regarding setting up a wifi network between my house and my moms house since she does not have high speed internet and would allow me to extend my network to her house that way i can use it there as well. We only live 1 mile apart but do not have line of site between each other. There are some pine trees between us. The signal has to pass through the corner of a pine tree forest and then over another area with trees as well but not quite as dense as the forest just a row of trees matter of fact. I was thinking about setting up a 16db yagi at each end hooked to a regular wireless router running about 28dbm of power. I planned on using ddwrt on the routers on each end. I am able to get the antenna up about 20ft on one end and about 30ft on the other. Just wondering if I use a yagi on each end will I be able to make the link work? Would the yagi antenna work or do I need something else like a parabolic disk type antenna or maybe a flat panel antenna? Do you guys think that it will work, if not please offer suggestions on what might work. Also if the routers would not be enough power would a amp on each one work better? Trying to set this up without spending a lot of money.

Thanks,
Joey


1 mile + Pine Forrest + Cheap = Fail

You would have to get line of sight above the trees for this to work.
 

SCPD

QRT
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
Messages
0
Location
Virginia
I think a set up like this would be prone to lots of interference. Another thing that comes to mind is Ethernet limitations. As I recall it is something like 300 meters before Ethernet begins to fail and requires a repeater to boost the signal along. This is of course on a standard CAT5 Ethernet network, so I am not sure if the same theory applies to wireless or not.

You'd also need to crank the transmitting power up a bit too, which makes me wonder how much interference you might produce for legitimate license holders in other parts of the spectrum. You might want to think this through completely before you find yourself subject to scrunity of the radio police for causing RFI in a band you are not licensed to use.

Just a couple things to think about.
 
K

kb0nly

Guest
A couple routers with yagi's would work, provided you can get line of sight!

I know people out in the country that share from one farm to another, some going 2-3 miles line of sight with high gain yagi's and DDWRT on each router to make them wireless repeaters.

There is even one company near here that uses standard 802.11G with routers and omni antennas to cover a large area, they connect the sites together with high gain yagi antenna's.

I know some Ham's have gotten around the power issue by using our license priviledges to increase the transmit power. There was an article in QST a while back where they used Linksys routers with DDWRT and external amplifiers bringing the power up to 1-2w into a high gain antenna. I see these 2.4 amps on eBay all the time. Problem is they don't make the buyer aware of the licensing requirement to use that much power.
 

fyrfyter33

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Messages
222
Location
Cincinnati, OH
Using DD-WRT on a router without an amp might be possible in wireless bridge mode. We have done this without line of sight, and been able to make it work. However, the speed isn't really there. I think we were only getting about 100k, not anywhere close to the MB mark, and we were only 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile out. The other issue is, in order to make this work, you are going to have to up the power to the broadcom chipset in the router. anything over the recommended max of 70 in DD-WRT is going to definitely shorten the lifespan of the chipset. And with the router you want to use running $70/ea, I can see this getting pricey really fast.
 

kayn1n32008

ØÆSØ
Joined
Sep 20, 2008
Messages
6,601
Location
Sector 001
In QST in early 2003 (feburary i think), there was an article about a group of amateurs using 802.11G 2.4Ghz netwok cards as a packet backbone over long distance(miles as i recall). They had problems with propogation delays that were causing packet collisions, with tweeks to the network card settings, they were able to get great data through-put.

802.11G is not going to give you high data speeds over long distance with just yagi's and a bit more transmit power.

And if you are going to be putting yagi's up 20 and 30 feet in the air you are going to need some good coax. RG-58 just is not going to cut it, even over a run of 20 feet at one end and 30 feet on the other end, there is going to be HUGE loss at 2.4Ghz. You really do need to invest in high quality antennas and high quality coax (LMR 400 at a minimum)

It definatly can be done but it is going to take quality antennas, yagi's at a minimum, high quality coax, and custom settings in both routers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top