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Wireless Dilemma at Newton's House?
"The alternative approach just seems silly:
Proposed: Add another 128k ISDN line and 2 ordinary phone lines in one building (for office use) install 2 phone lines in another building (for other use) and continue using the existing 128k line in another building (used for free public internet access) - the network option would come from using the Internet and a VPN (the 4th building wouldn't be connected in this scenario). Hard line (cabled) ethernet cannot be used as it will be both be too expensive and involve digging underground which is not allowed.
Being a charity, The National Trust (the owners) aren't going to invest in some experimental wireless kit that might not work. But surely someone out there in the Slashdot community can help to ensure that it will. It must be possible, surely?"
If there are existing phone lines, is it not possible to set up some sort of VPN over DSL that does not require the addition of more phone lines?
... why does this historic place need to be networked? :)
Also
the blood has stopped pumping, and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
T'aint cheap, but maybe a laser to laser connection set up between buildings. You should only have to point the access points out the window at each other.
Don't such buildings usually have some kind of metal moulding somehwere on the outside (along the roof, etc), or a wheathervein? You could connect your antenna to that, I guess.
Also, just putting the antenna in a window with a line-of-site to the target building might be good enough.
If you can run your own copper DSL dry pair should be an option.
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
If a half dozen cubicle walls can drop WiFi to background noise, I have _no_ _idea_ what stone walls would do.
Can you beg borrow or steal a 2.5 Ghz cordless phone and see how well it works?
As far as exposed antennae, 802.11 basestations get along with 6" antennae. My unit works a good 1500 feet out the back of my house (wood structure) the unit sits on top of the Fridge, and there are quite a few windows on that side of the house.
Place the basestation on somebody's desk with a good view of the other buildings. I'll bet it'll jump the gap.
A card is less than $100, a Basestation is less than $180(us), have some fun running aroung the campus with netstumbler, it's good for a few days exercize.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
When will people get it into their heads! This is a historical site.
Use the correct solution for the problem, people!
Strap packets to the legs of carrier pigeons and get them to transmit the information between the buildings.
--
Employing incompetence: $35/h
Fixing the resulting mistakes: $1000's
Employing me: Priceless
This sounds like a job for RF1149.
No need for antennas, just an open window.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
IP Over Apples Falling From Trees. I'd have to look up the RFC -- I don't have it handy.
Mount the antenna externally, but design an enclosure that will blend in with the exterior?
Yes, I realize the example link is for an accent light, not an 802.11 antenna. Use some creativity.
This is an absurd question. The person asking this question knows the answer and even nearly admits it in the question.
The restriction against high-gain antennae is prohibiting typical aesthetic eyesores from being attached to the building. Wireless networking antennaes are nothing like digital sattelite dishes, or big tv aerials. Wireless networking antennaes are essentially invisible and wouldn't violate the restrictions mentioned. The could even be obscured from sight within faux lamposts, etc.
seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
EDITORS: Can you post a picture of the buildings, diagram? A VRML or other CAD file? Notes and diagrams on existing wiring would be enormously helpful.
Can you run fibre through the plumbing system?
I'm sure we (as a community) can come up with something inexpensive and innovative.
On the assumption that you can't concentrate a 802.11 signal strong enough to punch through the brick walls...
:) Assuming that the rooves are slanted, it would be no effort to put a high-gain (directed) antennae in the roofs to point to one or two other buildings. It might even be possible to use omni-directional antenna, and cut down on the number of antennae needed.
I seriously doubt the roof is made of brick, too
There are also 802.11 amplifiers available. In the US, you're allowed to pump them up to 1W before the FCC come knocking. That should be plenty, even with an omnidirectional rather than directional amtenna.
Think of it this way. If these houses share a wall, and one access point can "see" an access point on the other side of the wall, then you could theoretically have two access points talking to each other, and then a third talking to the second, and so on. Within each of the houses, computers could access the network enabled by that point through whatever means (cable or wireless within the house) were deemed appropriate.
Read this writer's own experience with multiple walls over 100 meters for some insight.
You could also try using existing power lines to build a network. I don't know which of these tools are approved for use in the UK, but I imagine there are at least some solutions that can make use of existing cabling.
***Foucault is watching you..***
and they need to be networked together, somehow.
Why on earth would these buildings need networking? I assume they are tourist attractions, what could be needed that can't be done stand alone? I assume they don't even have phones ATM (or you could use those lines).
Measure the distance between the buildings. Let's just work with two buildings here in this example.
You have house A and house B. They are 100 feet apart from each other. Now we know that the average width of a midget is about 2 feet give or take. I don't know about UK labor laws but in the US 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week is your typical.
Soooo... we're gonna need 50 midgets to go between the buildings providing they stand shoulder to shoulder. If you want to cut down on costs have them extend their arms and hire the ones with the widest armspan. But we'll stick with 50 midgets for one shift.
Well we need them there 24 hours a day so we'll need three shifts so 150 midgets. Then you have weekends and vacation, sick time, and other stuff so maybe hire two more shifts worth. Then you can just run straight cable through the sleeves of their shirts.
If class A buildings aren't allowed to have midgets you can dress them up as lawn gnomes and get them taxidermied. It's cheaper that way too. You only need one shift and maybe need to replace them once a year or so.
The best part is, people will come to see Newtons house and to see the midgets too!
Go get the local high school drama club to make up some mock bricks out of styrofoam that carrier waves can easily pass through. All they really require is a weekly paint job to keep them looking authentic since they would need to stand up to the elements...
...ok, ok I give up! stop hitting me!...
I have a USB based LinkSys 802.11b network adapter. The antenna is attached using a MCX (?) connector and can therefor easily be extended to move the antenna atleast a few inches closer to the outside. Also, the antenna is quite small. If you painted it and blended it in with the stonework I doubt you would actually see it from 10ft away. It can easily transmit a couple hundred yards in the open. (I think it is rated for 250Meters, but there newer stuff is about 400 meters).
You could put it in the window as is and test 2 of them quite easily.
Actually 1 Metre is 1.09 yards... Close enough for a rough estimate.
Britain (not just England) uses SI units for most things...
Though for beer we still use pints... And not those American 16 ounce pints, but real imperial 20 ounce pints. And speed is usually in Miles per hour... and distances in miles...
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
A few pictures of Woolsthorpe Manor are here. I would propose putting the arials inside, against the windows in the attic (no tour groups go through there I would venture to guess). The 2.4Ghz signals could pass through the glass unimpeded and would not blemish the exteriors of the structures.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Either 1) make an extern antenna invisible,
as for example by replacing a facade stone with
a simulacrum with an embedded antenna, or
2) put the antenna inside. A pair of matched directional yagis (or pringle's can, for pete's
sake) can treat a glass window as effectively
invisible.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Now, answering:
The mention of "high gain aerials" points the way.
Find a point in each building where rf-transparent material (glass would be best, but wood sheltered from rain would do (2.4Ghz and water, don't you know)) faces a spot of similar material on a building you want in the network. Finding a trail of thses, connecting the dots, you can then lace the campus together with 802.11 WAPs, pringle-can antennae, and some N jumper cables, and you're using 802.11 to bridge the buildings, probably for about $200US per building. Note that the antennae don't have to be at the exterior wall. Inside a nice DRY wooden cabinet, able to see the target through a window, will do nicely. Sure, the wall may block signal, but it's signal you don't care about anyway. I don't know of any WAP that can be both a bridge and an access point simultaneously, so you'd need a second wap in the building if you want to use 802.11 to the nodes. Otherwise, you just hang the bridging WAPs on the wired network.
OOH! Do these buildings have cupolae? If so, enough rf should shoot through the slits to propogate even during mild rain (put the WAP inside a tupperware container or something).
This is an easy problem. 2.4GHz sees through Windows like they're made of glass. Just get a pair of linksys WAP11 WAPs with the stock dual antennas, configure them in bridge mode, and place them in the windows of the various buildings such that they have a clear view of one another. These devices run about $170 in the U.S., and are trivially easy to configure. I've used them for building-building at distances >100m without external antennas and had no issues.
aka Matthew at SlashNOT/!
i presume that this may be read by non-techy people so I repeat what alot of peoplle know that read this page sorry about that but I am trying to convince charitys in the UK to use a cost effective solution and not go wasting their money on PC's and such I would much rather they employ a gardner or handy man to keep propertys in good condition than spend money on upgrading and just use the best solution
yes and you could do it with any modern OS (Microsoft Windows XP, Mac OS X.2 and yes linux )
the cost to a charity would be the decideing factor
I would use Debian debian or Redhat also look for a local Linux User Group (LUG) these people would donate their time and expertise I am sure (-:
find UK LUG's here
useing a linux based solution would mean that you may not have to buy any new machines as you could use any that you already have
in terms of presenting information (I presumne thats why you want them networked )
THE best solution is to make a website that as well as you can publish to the world through a website you can also setup Linux box as a kiosk so that you can view nothing else except what you want (just think of the web broser area in full screen ) have a look around www. I am sure they have a solution I just cant remember the link (anyone help out ?)
also remember that DSL or ISDN is a bill every month so you might want a private link to cut costs
also if you have a grant that you can only spend on network I would recomend getting a IR link between the buildings (I have a backup link for the fiber that is between two Uni buildings and no these are not like your IR link on your PC but about 1-2Mbps which is pretty good) I cant remember the people that make it anyone got any good recomendations for IR links ?
hope this helps please contact people in your LUG and when you have a solution up and running let slashdot know !
regards
John Jones
Front view
I fail to see why you can't cable it with fibre. For health and safety reasons they'll be bright red fire alarm boxes wired with tasteful orange cable, or covered with plastic trunking, all over the buildings already.
All national trust buildings are required to have modern electric cabling for normal lighting, power sockets (for the cleaners) as well as emergency exit lighting (to light the fire escape routes), which will be encased in trunking skirting the walls. Fibre optic or even Cat5 can be added to that trunking easily, and has been done on other historical sites.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
How about using an external antenna but making it invisible to the naked eye somehow? (e.g. putting it inside a stone-coloured box so that it looks like part of the building, or using an antenna that is very skinny or small)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Just think of how much it'll cost to hire the multiplex/demultiplexer's. Anyways, wouldn't an optic-al solution be more in the spirit of Sir Isaac Newton?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
That would be a really good idea. You know those fake rocks to hide ugly things. Well that would be a wireless station beside the building. Then the "fake rocks" (buildings) are tied together using cables. Within the building wireless repeaters could be used to ensure good coverage.
This would be the cheapest and would work.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Run an internal wireless system use the chimneys, and relay signal up the chimney, across to the other chimneys in other buildings and any others in the said office.
Works great,...unless of course they still in fact use the chimneys... *LOL*
We had a similar problem at a historic landmark that was also a working court-house. Our solution was mounting relays on the ceiling and using IR transmitters.
It was also only a single floor building.
Short-story: It worked and was damn expensive -- but would be considered too slow by todays standards. I wouldn't doubt that stragically placed 802.11 repeaters/bridges and 802.11 nics would work nicely. Might even be about the same cost (once inflation is figured in)
-jhon
You don't bust bricks out of Category One buildings.
Moron.
Alternately, if they have facing windows a wi-fi could be set up without external aerials. Same for IR in that case.
... for radio waves in GHz range. Old houses don't have metal reinforcement meshes, so one can treat anything to be "line of sight" as long as it crosses only brick walls, plaster and wood. What they have to look for is the line that is not blocked by trees/plants with leaves that have size comparable with a wavelength (poplar, maple, etc. -- I have no idea what grows in that particular place) -- those contain enough water to work as antennas, so they can block the radio waves easily.
The whole "night not work" thing is silly -- one only needs two laptops, or laptop and AP to check if the link can be established, first with builtin antenna, then with small patch antennas, remaining indoor in those buildings.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
How strict is the "No Digging" rule? I could understand not being able to dig an enormous ditch, but could you go in with an edger?
We recently had some wires run throughout our yard. It took a large circular saw (an edger would do the exact same thing), and you couldn't even tell that a hole was dug unless you were right next to it. The stuff done through the grass is barely noticable now (and I'd guess that, given a few more weeks, you'll never be able to tell).
I'd say run some Cat5 (or fiber if the runs are too long) through a hose (I'd be really hesitant to bury plain Cat5, though it might work out just fine.) I can't comment on the legality, though, but I don't see why it'd be prohibited if it's not really "digging" a big hole, but rather making a small incision...
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Even a high-gain antenna which would normally be visible can be completely concealed or contained within another object, as long as that object won't absorb or reflect electromagnetic waves in the microwave range. To quote Dragorn during the talk on 802.11b at H2K2, "If you put it in the microwave and it comes out hot, don't use it."
I am !amused.
Digging is not allowed.
Are there drains or sewers?
Unlike copper cables, fibers can be strung through wet and toxic paths (such as sewers) and work just fine.
Use 'em both to interconnect the buildings and to bring in the phone and data services. (You can get phone and data on a single fiber pair no problem.)
If you have to run 'em through a sewer just clean the ends with dilute bleach after the plumber gets 'em strung and sealed in.
Only downside is you have to be careful if you ever need to snake the drain to unclog it from tree roots - unless you're willing to re-string the fibers afterward. (Use a preventitive biocide instead if there are trees near the drainpipe.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
People have been hiding antennae for years in situations where they are distracting or otherwise undesirable.
Dominos farms (Ann Arbor, MI) has a tower that looks more like a bent sculpture than a cell phone/radio/microwave tower.
I'm certian you can take a flat 802.11b antenna, put some durable rock looking material over it and place it inconspicuously on the exterier of the building. It need only stick out an inch or two.
I would try, though, first putting a high gain directional antenna inside the buildings pointing to the other buildings. The rock will dampen the signal, but I bet you'll get more than enough to improve vastly on 128k.
Lastly, look at using two DSL modems and the on site phone wiring. You can put most DSL modems into a peer to peer mode, and they simply go over any used or unused (phone levels) unshielded twisted pair wire. Think of it as a higher version of the venerable modem, but broadband since you aren't actually trying to transmit over the phone networks digital switched network. This might actually be better than wireless.
-Adam
Great idea! I recommend these:
i nt/
http://www.nettonettech.com/solutions/point-to-po
I'd just add that you can tape^H^H^H^H firmly secure the antenna behind the window frame to make it totally invisible; 802.11b goes through 1.5" of wood with no problems.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It won't go through thick brick and stone. It's also adversely affected by the plaster-on-chicken-wire construction popular in the 40s LA.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
If there are existing phone lines, is it not possible to set up some sort of VPN over DSL that does not require the addition of more phone lines?
MWAHAWHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWHWWA HWA WHAHWA WAHWHWAH WAHAWHWAHWAHAW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
*wipes the tears from his eye*
DSL in Lincolnshire? You MUST be kidding right. Anyone who wants broadband in this farming hellhole has to pay $1500 to get satellite installed, and then a nice $120 per month to BT for 512kbps downstream and 256kbps upstream!
That said, Boston, Louth and Sleaford have DSL in the town centers, but that'd be like only Dallas and Austin having DSL in Texas.
To put it bluntly.. BT are a bunch of cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life,snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless,hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sacks of monkey shit who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.
mogorific carpentry experiments
If they have windows and line of sight can't they use infrared? How fast does the network really have to be in a couple of houses that are hundreds of years old? what exactly do they do that they need the network for anyway?
-
Someone taking a huge dump might disrupt the signal, so don't forget the error bits.
Best of luck ;)
It's a 17th century rural manor house, surrounded by farmland. Pictures an be found here
No furnace room.
No central heating
No concrete.
No easy access to the street.
My parents live in the UK. I live in the US. Our plumbing, electrical and heating infrastructures are very different.
How about each side wear aluminum foil antenna hats.
Table-ized A.I.
I work in a ground-floor data center in an old building. My indoor 802.11b access point is across the hall and must cross through 2 foot-thick cinderblock concrete walls to reach me.
I have good bandwidth, with a generic omnidrectional anttena on the AP. I can also access the network from the street 50+ meters way.
A plain-vanilla 802.11b wireless network with directional antennas will work fine here. 802.11b's wavelenth lends itself to these sort of applications (802.11a, while faster for line-of-site, degrades badly in these types of situations).
This is true even if the antennas are indoors, pointing through brick walls.
Add directional antennas pointing through windows, and the situation will improve dramatically. Add small hidden outdoor antennas, and the picture is even better.
A wireless tech told me that he hooked up a 50-mile 802.11b network in Africa between 2 mountaintops (one with local internet access, with other without). The wireless link was 2 'only' mbits (down from a theoretical 11 mbits), but otherwise worked fine.
This one's easy.
For instance, the existing ISDN line could be changed (note that ISDN and DSL can't share a wire pair) to run "dry pair DSL" to a telephone junction box down the road, with equipment kept in a nearby barn, or even just a splice to connect two SDSL modems in different buildings. Or at least it could, if BT weren't such fine arseholes.
Probably the best idea is to use a mains LAN if there are existing electrical power lines. As long as all the important outlets are on the same side of the final transformer, they should be able to communicate.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Get an industrial RF module that works in the 433 or 868 european unlicensed bands. These lower frequencies penetrate walls much better.
No, they are not as fast as WiFi. Most of them are around 19200 but I've seen some that run at 1 mbps. The lower bandwidth improves sensitivity and increases the range significantly.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
that's coz you're stupid. They are not allowed to run wires. If you can't run wires, then what is your remaining option? Wireless. Duh!
thank you
The equipment is inexpensive, and every outlet becomes a network connection point. See Cringely's 8/15/02 article on the subject.
It's faster than 802.11b, too.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
While you state that you can't have an external antenna, how closely can you skirt the rules, and place a small, (6-inch by 6-inch), directional antenna in an upper corner of a window, pointing from one building to the next? Then you could simply have a reciprocating pannel to catch the signal in the next building.
3Com's Access Point 8000 would likely do what you want, or they have a point-to-point modual that's made for just this. And frankly, depending on the distance involved, you might be able to push it through the stone wall and catch it on the other side in a similar manner, then your antenna could be mounted in a closet where no one would ever see them, save the janitor and the IT guy.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
There is a new kid in town...HomePlug (see I, Cringely). It sounds promising, if it really works - I just hope linux is quick to support it. It is the use of home wiring, something talked about for about 2 years or so but finally, and perhaps, ready for the big time. As long as the houses are on the same transformer from the power company, they should be easily networked via HomePlug.
No changes to wiring, no rewiring, no external changes. Sounds about perfect.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Also remember that these beams can bounce off metallic surfaces. If these walls don't let radio signals through, they might also be reflective. So a beam through a window might reflect off another building and reach another window at an angle other than line-of-sight. If the street has cobblestones under it, those might also be reflective.
Well, back to the inside of the building...
No cupolae on Woolsthorpe Manor. The Newtonia site is gone except for the Wayback Machine. The picture there and on other sites shows a high pitched roof.
The Newtonia pictures inside the house show a flat ceiling. I don't know if those rooms are on the first or second floor. If they're on the second floor, then there is an attic. But even if the rafters are exposed, perhaps a wooden cabinet in the rafters could be used for wireless equipment.
It looks like a shingled or slate roof. If there is not too much metal in the roof, you could fire a beam through it (I don't know the metallic and moisture content of slate, and there might be a layer of tin). And the building is L-shaped, so all four directions are visible through the faces of the roofs.
Of course, what would be needed are beams (802.11 or infrared lasers) between the buildings, connected by Ethernet cable to wireles access points for use within the buildings.
Sorry, but what are you guys smoking? Yes, I know it is a historic site, but we are not talking about needing a 300 foot tower with a 80 meter log periodic on top of it.
Stealth antennas are easy to build and are VERY effective. I don't know what the buildings you want to network look like, but I bet there are plenty of antenna hiding places.
I have built antennas for years for ham radio and it is not all that hard to disguise the things so that you would even have a hard time seeing them from a foot away. This 2.4 GHz stuff is even easier to disguise since the antennas are only going to be a few inches long.
By my caluculation, for a 1/4 wave dipole at 2.4 GHz, you are going to need a approximately 3.125 cm of wire. I think that would be next to impossible to NOT hide!