Anyone ever get wireless 300 feet with good signal?

[Cnuke]

I have two buildings that I want to connect wireless. I have setup similar buildings, but they were much closer.

Anyone out there activally using equipment that will push the signal that far? Point A and B are in line of site and there is nothing in between.

 

[spidey07]

honestly that's childs play for wireless. Probably wouldn't even need directional anteannas but definately should. Good idea to use quality commercial access points/antennas.

 

[Zap]

I've done 7 miles using commercial APs and directional antennas pointed at each other, and 4 miles using consumer APs with directional antennas pointed at each other.

300' with pure line of sight? No sweat. My recommendation would be to put small, directional panel antennas outside and pointed at each other, and mount the AP inside (or under the eaves). FAB has good prices on antennas, and has 9dbi outdoor panel antennas starting at under $30 each. Note that you will need a "pigtail" to use these, to convert N-type connectors to whatever your AP uses.

 

[nweaver]

yeah, I have 7-8 mile runs form client radios, and a 10ish mile backhaul. ANother person leasing space on our tower is ~ 15 miles.

Look to pac wirless for rootennas, and mount the bridges inside the antenna's on a mast.

 

[Cnuke]

ZAP thanks for the link. I assume the higher the dbi the stronger the signal. I typed 300 feet, but it is actually 300 yards. The way it sounds it is will not mater at this point.

I am heading to Costa Rica and setting this up for a friend while I am there so I need to have all of my i dotted and t's crossed. I will need to test this before I get there.

Do you recommend any specific antenna on FAB? The older AP I have are linksys wireless B. Will that still reach that distance with these antennas or will I need to get different AP's or a different solution all together?

Now they have DSL at one site and they need to get it to the other building. If you think that I can setup one of these AP with one antenna and have them get usb wireless cards then I will only need one AP. I had these two AP set as a bridge at one point between buildings that were across the street and they worked fine.

Thoughts?

Advanced thanks

 

[nweaver]

Don't try to run a bridge AND an ap on the same device.

Setup the 2 AP's in BRIDGE mode and then drop them to the LAN.

 

[marulee]

With APs you will, when they are bridged..

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Cnuke
I will need to test this before I get there.

That's a very good idea. Get them working indoors, then once you get the antennas and pigtails, test them outdoors roughly at the distance you need to go.

As for antennas, probably any will work. Yes, higher gain (dbi) means stronger signal. The "yagi" style antenna seems priced decent too. I'm not sure what's better - have used them both and in our applications they seem to work about the same. Just remember to keep polarity the same. You may want to telephone them for more specific recommendations. Have your access points at hand so they know what equipment you are running, and can help you get the right pigtail. The "pigtail" is a short cable that connects your radio (AP) antenna connector to an "N" type, which is what most of the antennas use. You'll also want to figure out how you're going to situate the radio and antennas. Most antennas can be easily mounted to poles, wall, window sill, whatever. The radio needs to go somewhere. The Roo-tenna is a panel with a watertight compartment to hold the radio. It's a good design because the shorter the cable between the radio and antenna (and fewer connectors) the better the signal. However, you'll have to run power over ethernet (POE). Alternately you'd have to situate the radio/AP and then have a long enough cable to go to the antenna.

BTW, the antennas we've used to go many miles were the 24dbi parabolic, one on each side pointed to each other. We had to use a GPS to aim them since we couldn't see the other end even with high power binoculars.

Remember to mount the antenna high enough so that nothing moving in-between (someone driving a truck?) can block the signal.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Cnuke
I will need to test this before I get there.

That's a very good idea. Get them working indoors, then once you get the antennas and pigtails, test them outdoors roughly at the distance you need to go.

As for antennas, probably any will work. Yes, higher gain (dbi) means stronger signal. The "yagi" style antenna seems priced decent too. I'm not sure what's better - have used them both and in our applications they seem to work about the same. Just remember to keep polarity the same. You may want to telephone them for more specific recommendations. Have your access points at hand so they know what equipment you are running, and can help you get the right pigtail. The "pigtail" is a short cable that connects your radio (AP) antenna connector to an "N" type, which is what most of the antennas use. You'll also want to figure out how you're going to situate the radio and antennas. Most antennas can be easily mounted to poles, wall, window sill, whatever. The radio needs to go somewhere. The Roo-tenna is a panel with a watertight compartment to hold the radio. It's a good design because the shorter the cable between the radio and antenna (and fewer connectors) the better the signal. However, you'll have to run power over ethernet (POE). Alternately you'd have to situate the radio/AP and then have a long enough cable to go to the antenna.

BTW, the antennas we've used to go many miles were the 24dbi parabolic, one on each side pointed to each other. We had to use a GPS to aim them since we couldn't see the other end even with high power binoculars.

Remember to mount the antenna high enough so that nothing moving in-between (someone driving a truck?) can block the signal.

heh...our long distance backhauls we just wing it (point it generally) and then fine tune it once we have a signal. Easier for us, we live in the middle of nowhere, and until recently, were pretty much the ONLY 802.11 signals in the valley.

 

[hanoverphist]

ive seen not one mention of a polyphaser to suppress lightning. if youre trying for a system that will be outside, i suggest you look into it. ive replaced many radios that have been hit, and while it smells good its very harad on the parts involved. that pigtail (whip) youre looking for needs to be fairly short also, as you lose signal with that small cable. if youre only going 50 or so feet, use a 5/8" antenna cable made to go the distance without much db loss. the yagi types work great for 2 points, but if youre thinking of ever expanding, set up the main with an omni type so you can get more nodes up without future cost of upgrading. personally, for large distance wireless, i prefer both the MDS iNet 900 radios over any linksys wireless AP. Esteem radio makes a really cool one too, it has dual access points and can be configured for redundancy, and in groups can be set up as a net of access instead of only a point-to-point. problem is, those aint cheap. esteem retail at about 3k usually, and the MDS are roughly 1400-1500 retail. but, worth it if youre pushing industrial or commercial data back and forth.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: hanoverphist
ive seen not one mention of a polyphaser to suppress lightning. if youre trying for a system that will be outside, i suggest you look into it. ive replaced many radios that have been hit, and while it smells good its very harad on the parts involved. that pigtail (whip) youre looking for needs to be fairly short also, as you lose signal with that small cable. if youre only going 50 or so feet, use a 5/8" antenna cable made to go the distance without much db loss. the yagi types work great for 2 points, but if youre thinking of ever expanding, set up the main with an omni type so you can get more nodes up without future cost of upgrading. personally, for large distance wireless, i prefer both the MDS iNet 900 radios over any linksys wireless AP. Esteem radio makes a really cool one too, it has dual access points and can be configured for redundancy, and in groups can be set up as a net of access instead of only a point-to-point. problem is, those aint cheap. esteem retail at about 3k usually, and the MDS are roughly 1400-1500 retail. but, worth it if youre pushing industrial or commercial data back and forth.

You shouldn't make a radio the peak (we put ours below the top roofline whenever possible)

Our tower has taken 2 lightning hits, prior to making a homemade lightning suppressor thing (other guy understands electrical stuff alot better then me). Fried one AP, no problems the other time. This is a tall tower with the AP's.

For what this user is looking for, 3K radios are too much. You could do a Rootenna and Cisco 1200 series with A radios for less then 1K probably (get the older cisco's with B/A radios).