Need Help w/ Long Range Wireless Network (300ft-500ft)

[fire7882]

Hope this is the right section.

I'm looking for equipment that would allow me to send a wireless signal about 400 feet to another building on my parent's property. They currently have AT&T 6.0 DSL and their modem acts as a router. I would assume I would need an Access Point at the modem/router location and then something else at the computer location that is 400 feet away. Is there another standalone device I could use to receive the signal and connect the computer to that with an eithernet cord? Any specific product recomendations?
Also, there are 2 other buildings/cabins about 1000 feet from the modem/router. Would it be possible to have a signal reach these locations affordably? I provided an image below for reference. The 2 blue circles are the primary locations while the 2 white circles denote the locations where it would be nice to have internet. The router/modem and access point must be located at the top blue circle.

Thanks in advance for the help

[Jaimecbr900]

I'm no I.T. expert by any means, but I have set up wireless networks before.


I would think that you could use a good and powerful wireless router at the point of origin, bounce it off some kind of repeater antenna/router, and then be able to get the signal where you want it.

One problem I see is that you have lots of trees. You know this all works best when there are less restrictions in place. That is probably going to slow you signal down the most. I know they make both indoor and outdoor antennas that are more powerful. Maybe a combo of both would resolve your dilema. I know that I once bought better antennas for my old G router, and they only seemed to marginally increase the signal strength (and that's inside a house). I now have a different router and am very happy with it. It definetly trumps my old router by a ton. It's a Linksys SRX. It has probably twice the power my old Linksys G did.

Maybe you could install an outdoor repeater antenna somewhere near that dock which looks pretty open and centralized. From there, the signal would possibly reach the other buildings easier than trying to send it thru the woods first. Just an idea.

I would go to an electronics store like Fry's where they have a really large selection of both routers, antennas, and such. I'm sure you should be able to make it work some how.

[Blitanicle99]

Buy yourself a huge roll of Ethernet cable from an industrial store and go to town with it.

[4dmin]

well you can bridge the wirless together like point to point, but i think it could get costly on the equipment... this wouldn't be something you could go pickup at best buy. but this will get you miles of connectivity.

[fire7882]

Jaimecbr900,

Thanks for the input. Your sudgestions were in line with what I was thinking. I've even heard of some wireless devices working at these distances but they want a reliable signal. Maybe have a high power access point with a repeater outside the house and another one on the outside of the other building. I'll keep doing a little more research and let you know what I find out.

Blitanicle99,
I thought of this as well but the amount of work would suck and the cost of the cable would most likely surpass the cost of all the wireless equipment. I don't even know if eithernet will work over distances that long.

[fire7882]

well you can bridge the wirless together like point to point, but i think it could get costly on the equipment... this wouldn't be something you could go pickup at best buy. but this will get you miles of connectivity.

Do you know if the signal degrades as it is transfered from point to point? This sound like it might be our best bet.

[Jaimecbr900]

well you can bridge the wirless together like point to point, but i think it could get costly on the equipment... this wouldn't be something you could go pickup at best buy. but this will get you miles of connectivity.

Damn Paul, you gonna have this guy spending big bucks, aint cha? Aren't bridge antennas like thousands of $$$?

Wouldn't possibly using a couple of nice boosted antennas strategically placed to bounce the original signal off a nice powered router possibly work? :lmfao:

I know I've seen directional booster antennas at places like Fry's that are supposed to increase the range and stuff. I think they also make an outdoor version of that, right?

[Jaimecbr900]

Buy yourself a huge roll of Ethernet cable from an industrial store and go to town with it.

I don't think that will work at the range he's looking for. I know that several companies had trouble when I first got DSL at home because my house sits more than 500' from the road. Eventhough I have fiber all the up to my mailbox, when they dropped a coax to get the signal up the house, it had 56k speed. They ended up putting some special cable that is rated for over 500' ft. I doubt a roll of that would be economical enough to make this project work though.;)

[4dmin]

there are several options available, personally if you are planning on connecting the 4 buildings... you can do wired/wireless: copper/fiber/wireless bridge/etc...




Bridge Basics

The industry-accepted definition of a bridge is a device that connects two networks that may use the same or a different Data Link Layer protocol (Layer 2 of the OSI Model). Bridges have been in use for decades, especially with wired networks. Remote bridges, for example, are generally at each end of a point-to-point link, such as those that interconnect two buildings. Other bridges within a local network may connect two different networks types, such as Ethernet and Token Ring.

LAN bridges have ports that connect two or more otherwise separate LANs. The bridge receives packets on one port and re-transmits them on another port. A bridge will not start re-transmission until it receives a complete packet. Because of this, stations on either side of a bridge can transmit packets simultaneously without causing collisions.

Some bridges re-transmit every packet on the opposite port whether or not the packet is heading to a station located on the opposite network. A learning bridge, which is more common, examines the destination address of every packet to determine whether it should forward the packet based on a decision table that the bridge builds over time. This increases efficiency because the bridge will not re-transmit a packet if it knows that the destination address is on the same side of the bridge as the sending address. Learning bridges also age address table entries by deleting addresses that have not been heard from for a specified amount of time.

Bridges vs. Access Points
Access points connect multiple users on a wireless LAN to each other and to a wired network. For example, 20 users equipped with 802.11 network interface cards (NICs) may associate with a single access point that connects to an Ethernet network. Each of these users has access to the Ethernet network and to each other. The access point here is similar to a bridge device, but the access point interfaces a network to multiple users, not other networks.

Bridges, though, connect networks and are often less expensive than access points. For example, a wireless LAN bridge can interface an Ethernet network directly to a particular access point. This may be necessary if you have a few devices, possibly in a far reaching part of the facility, that are interconnected via Ethernet. A wireless LAN bridge plugs into this Ethernet network and uses the 802.11 protocol to communicate with an access point that's within range. In this manner, a bridge enables you to wirelessly connect a cluster of users (actually a network) to an access point.

Types of WLAN Bridges
Basic Ethernet-to-Wireless. This type connects directly to a single device via an Ethernet port, and then provides a wireless connection to an access point. These types of connections offer a substitute for a radio NIC; making it useful when the device, such as a printer, PC, or video game console, has an Ethernet port and no 802.11 NIC. For example, D-Link offers an 802.11b compatible Ethernet-to-wireless bridge, model number DWL-810, for about $115. In some cases, you may have no way of adding a wireless NIC, which makes a basic bridge the only way to go wireless.
Workgroup Bridges. Workgroup bridges are the answer for connecting wireless networks to larger, wired Ethernet networks. Essentially a workgroup bridge acts as a wireless client on the wireless LAN and then interfaces to a wired network. The wired side may connect directly with a single device (like an Ethernet-to-Wireless bridge) or to an Ethernet hub or switch that connects multiple devices. Generally, a workgroup bridge offers higher-end management and security utilities (with higher prices) as compared to a basic bridge. 3Com and Cisco offer 802.11b workgroup bridges, with prices of $349 to $629, respectively.
Access Point / Wireless Bridge Combos. Some vendors offer access points that you can configure as a bridge, but not both at the same time. Linksys has this capability in their WAP11 Access Point. This access point can operate in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint bridge mode. Like any wireless bridge, the WAP11 lets you wirelessly connect two or more Ethernet LANs together. Other vendors such as Cisco and Proxim also offer the combo version of access points.
Wireless bridges are a very practical, easy, and in most cases inexpensive way to connect Ethernet LANs or extend the range of existing WLANs. They are quick to set up and easy to configure, making them an ideal choice to quickly set up voice and data networks.

[fire7882]

Damn Paul, you gonna have this guy spending big bucks, aint cha? Aren't bridge antennas like thousands of $$$?



Damn, Thats expensive. I would like to keep this project at $500 or less. I really only NEED to get a signal from the 2 blue points but would like to be able to add to the system to reach the other 2 locations in the future.

Thanks again for the replies

[4dmin]

i would try a 802.11N network if you know someone w/ one... put it in the center blue house and see if you can connect to it from the other two. i believe those get you a range around 70 meters... that is about as good as it is going to get from single router. then you can do bridges/access points from there.

[Jaimecbr900]

i would try a 802.11N network if you know someone w/ one... put it in the center blue house and see if you can connect to it from the other two. i believe those get you a range around 70 meters... that is about as good as it is going to get from single router. then you can do bridges/access points from there.

That's what I was thinking. Big router, boosted antenna or access points, then on to where he wants.

Ok Paul, what's the consulting fee of an I.T. guy again?????:D ;)

[4dmin]

That's what I was thinking. Big router, boosted antenna or access points, then on to where he wants.

Ok Paul, what's the consulting fee of an I.T. guy again?????:D ;)

lol... here are the type of devices you need to looks into:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1158193143712&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=4371287090B02

+

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1129929125552&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=2555245678B04

+

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1166859687870&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=8787039789B58

[fire7882]

I found this video yesterday. It helped explain things a little.

http://revision3.com/systm/failure (http://revision3.com/systm/failure)


I think the first thing I going to try is getting the wireless N access point and add a couple repeaters with antenna's. I'll let you know how it turnes out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833995002

[joecoolfreak]

That is really your best bet, although I suspect that you are going to have very patchy reception and not be able to maintain a sold connection to the repeaters from the actual end computers. I have personally set up a few long range 10mb connections (over a mile or more) with commercial equipment, but it gets very expensive, very quickly. I used to work a great deal with a company called otc wireless that sold 24db access points and bridges for less than 500 a side, but from a quick glance, it doesn't look like they are around anymore. There are some of their products floating around at a few resellers so if you get some time to search, you might be able to beat these prices: http://www.capitolautomation.com/otc_order.htm

It's not going to be an easy task any way you look at it and will require a lot of trial and error. If you have any other specific questions, feel free to pm me as I don't frequent the board here as much as I used to.