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1KM 802.11b @ 2MB
OffTheRack writes "Check out this web site to see how a guy in Egypt built his own line-of-site (H:Get? It's Punny.) 1KM broadband connection. Plenty of nice pictures." Pretty cool set-up.
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Plenty of nice pictures. not for long.
this site has been up for several years, back when the pringles can first came out, sheesh, get some new contenct (like those cool dlink repeaters for 802.11b)
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
"Line-of-site" is what the surveyors drew along an edge of a pyramid which was to be built.
1km? At only 2Mbps? This has been done 8 years ago with the early 802.11 gear. You don't even need an antenna nowadays to pull 1km.
And he did it pretty cheap too... his only real expense was the wireless access points (way to go Linksys).
How's the weather in egypt? Wonder how it does in storms.
--------
Free your mind.
I feel my children growing third arms, though they be but little swimmers in my special place.
Don't know how long this server will last so:
:)
----------[snip]---------------
1KM, 2Mbps, 802.11b wireless link using
Linksys WAP11 + Yagi, in Hurghada, EGYPT
By: Hassan Adly
Hurghada, Red Sea, EGYPT
Posted December 10, 2001
Background:
I have an Internet cafe in Hurghada, Red Sea, Egypt, with an expensive broadband satellite connection, located 1 km from my house. The roofs of both buildings have a clear line of sight between them. At home I was previously limited to a V.90 modem connection, and remote administration of the cyber cafe network was impossible.
A fast connection between my house and the cafe was becoming more and more necessary, mostly in order to provide remote administration at acceptable speeds, but also of course to finally get fast Internet at home! Me-wann' download quicky-quicky now!
The Project:
A lot of aimless browsing brought me to I, Cringly. This man is a genius. On his "Pulpit" section is a treasure trove of articles on what I would call survival techniques in the digital age. After considering rolling my own DSL on an analog leased line, which would entail for me a hefty annual telecom fee (plus the rather high cost of Pair-Gain SDSL modems), I stumbled across This article about 802.11, which describes how Bob Cringley, with little trouble (use of telescopes notwithstanding), connected his rural home to a DSL connection he had set up 10 miles (16km) away.
So according to the theories gleaned from Cringley's article, I realised I could connect my domestic LAN to my workplace LAN, with the help of two wireless LAN bridging devices, and a couple of good antennae (and no annual fee!). Obviously worth further investigation..
I started with Cringley's 802.11 links, which sent me well on my way to wireless Nirvana. Detailed instructions and antenna designs abound, along with some innovative ideas (mostly about saving money, which is good).
After some quick price-researching I found that the cheapest 802.11 unit available that suited my purposes was the Linksys WAP11, which has detachable antennae, LAN-bridging capability, 128bit WEP encryption, and best of all, at the time of writing only costs US$134.- on Amazon.com! This unit has the best value for money available for this type of device right now. I lost no time in ordering me a couple of these gems and having them delivered to a friend in California who just happened to be on his way to Egypt a few weeks later. Lucky me!
The WAP11 has an out-of-the-box claimed maximum range of about 450 meters under ideal conditions, which even if true falls well short of my 1km requirement. I Also want to be able to connect at high speeds. A replacement is required for the antennae (obviously). So, logitech wheel-mouse in hand, I set about building some!
My first project was based on the ingenious Pringles can design. The hardest part for me about emulating the design on Rob Flickenger's website was finding Pringles cans for sale in Egypt. Fortunately I found a supermarket that stocks them and was able to build a pair. If you want to try the Pringles design let me warn you: Under no circumstances should you eat more than a few Pringles at a time! After eating a canful I was positively sick, to the point that all antenna construction was halted for two days! Unfortunately after all my efforts the "Pringletenna" link refused to work, either through a design fault of my own, or noise, or whatever. Maybe it's the grease in the pringles..
After much hand-wringing, beard-ripping, hair-pulling, etc, I decided to construct a more "industrial standard" antenna, which I did without much ado (pictured right). Sporting a 3 full wavelengths collector (compared to the pringletenna's 1 wavelength), and weather-proof PVC piping as the outer shell, these antennae from the start looked as if they meant business, and indeed they did, because as soon as they were installed and properly aimed, they produced a 2Mbps signal at 1km distance. Hurrah! Me do download at home quicky-quicky now!
At one side of the connection the LAN switch is more than 40 meters away from the antenna, with the other side about 20 meters. Instead of trying to push the WAP11's FCC-impaired signal through long antenna cables I decided to put my WAP11's right next to the antennae. Since the WAP11's aren't weatherproof I had to use a weatherproof housing.
I found these boxes (pictured above and left) at about US$10.- a piece at a local electrical parts store. To the left you can see how my access point as well as its DC adapter fit inside the box, with the LAN, power, and antenna cables entering through the side. BTW the DC adapter included with the WAP11 works internationally, supporting voltages from 110-250VAC. Very thoughtful on Linksys' part.
The roofs of both buildings are relatively secure, so theft of the AP is unlikely, however I am concerned about the fallibility of my housings, at the time of writing it is winter here, with average temperatures around 20-25C during the day, however in summer temperatures here in the Sahara desert can reach 50C. Additionally we very ocassionally experience high wind speeds (over 100km/h) and sand storms. The housings are rain and wind-proof, but whether the AP's will survive the extreme summer environment and sand storms is still a question unanswered. In theory I could install some forced-air cooling such as computer power-supply fans, but I've decided to let next summer be my creation's token reliability test (perhaps Linksys could pay me and use it in an ad-campaign like: "tested in the Sahara desert"..).
The WAP11's antenna connectors, I found to my chagrin, are unlike anything available in northern Africa. The "pigtail" connectors I have read about on American sites are unavailable in Egypt and considering that they cost about $60 each anyway, all the better. After days of driving from one electronics shop to another with no success, I decided to dismantle the standard WAP11 antenna and modify its connector for my purposes. After a lot of clamping, hammering and grinding, this is what I ended up with, a brutalized Linksys connector with a standard satellite dish N-connector jammed onto its backside. So instead of a $60 pigtail, I got a solution that cost me about $1 for the n-connectors (including the ones I destroyed during experimentation). I got the approximately 4 meters of cable I needed for free from a sat-dish repairman I know.
So far the most expensive modification was the 60 meters of Cat5 cable I had to pull from my LAN switches to the AP's.
For now I've set up one WAP11 as an AP, and the other as an AP client. I am using 64-bit shared-key WEP encryption (the WAP11 supports 128-bit WEP but higher encryption reduces speed). To support bridging mode and 64/128 bit WEP the WAP11 requires a firmware upgrade.
I should note here that the WAP11 has a nasty habit of going to sleep (for lack of a better expression) when there has been no traffic for a while. I solved this by setting my proxy server to continuously ping the client WAP11 from the other side of the link. That keeps them lazy WAP11's awake! I think Linksys should include a "keep alive" function in the next WAP11 firmware update, because this issue appears to be confusing a lot of people.
In order to preclude any unauthorized wireless access to my network I am planning to implement a Linux router behind the AP with CBQ routing to experiment with bandwidth management and deny bandwidth to unauthorized IP addresses. Not that we have many wardrivers in Egypt, but you can never be too safe, especially in Africa, eh?
My Costs:
2x WAP11:
$298.- (now $268 incl. shipping!)
60 meters CAT 5 cable:
$30.-
Yagi antenna parts:
About $10.-
2x Weather-proof boxes
$20.-
60 meters Electrical cable
$10.-
So for a total cost of about US$360.- I built a 1 km wireless link, running for the past 2 months at 2Mbps. Yay!
Future mods:
I am beginning to suspect that my choice of coca-cola cans as reflectors on the Yagi antennae may be affecting signal quality (hence the maximum speed of only 2Mbps). Hence I am looking for a flat-based can that has the same diameter as the coca-cola can.
Another modification I want to try is putting an Omni-directional antenna on the AP side. I'm combing newsgroups and websites for designs and ideas as time allows. My Dad has a nifty Senao wireless phone with a 60km range, and I'm trying to convince him to lend me his station antenna
For really long range links and highly improved signal strength, I believe one would require a bi-directional 2.4GHz amplifier like one of these hard to get wonders. Dear Santa, I want a couple of those military-spec 10 Watt amplifiers for Christmas!
Last on my wishlist is a UPS connected to each WAP11. I find that after power-outages the AP's take a while to see each other.
Noise issues:
Although I live in a small-ish town with presumably little electromagnetic interference, it is worth mentioning that this high-gain, 3 meter tall GSM network monstrosity is located about 7 meters away from my AP antenna, on the same roof. I really can't tell whether or not it is affecting my antenna. Across the road are a pair of of GSM omni-directional antenna towers (pictured below) which to my knowledge also don't seem to affect my link.
By: Hassan Adly
Acaila
Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional.
Download pr0n and kill some birds at the same time!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I was surprised to not see one to Pringles on the Pringles can link. I hate that.
Mine can't even reach as far as the front porch. Though I doubt the asbestos in the walls helps.
Egypt is pretty flat, so LOS is easy. All you need is an AP & a Pringles can.
Now if they were wiring all the pyramids with net access or something. then that would be cool.
You tried your best, & you failed miserably,
The lesson is:
Never Try
Although I live in a small-ish town with presumably little electromagnetic interference, it is worth mentioning that this high-gain, 3 meter tall GSM network monstrosity is located about 7 meters away from my AP antenna, on the same roof. I really can't tell whether or not it is affecting my antenna.
I think the more important question would be, "Is your unlicensed amplified antenna affecting their transmissions"
amazing - a site that has all
.. when you could use lynx and download individual gifs and view them without problem ..
Clear text
Clear reference links
adequate pictures
interesting topic matter
and no popups or ads
Sounds like the internet around 1995
http://trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm
I read direct TV dishes are a lot easier to build and go alot further.
How sad. The Egyptian guy comes from a nation that has an illustrious history and a civilization that predates yours by oh....a couple thousand years, and you come up with such a stereotypical "joke".
It's no wonder the "2nd World" nations resent the West. We hold them down and put them down at any chance.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
As stated earlier: "Posted December 10, 2001"
Acaila
Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional.
There is no way that those Bridges will last in that box outside . I've seen comercial wap equipment that's kept outside in the us go bad , and this stuff I'm talking about is meant to be kept outside . But i do have to say he has better grammar than most slash dotters ;) .
With a little more power you can get 11Mb/s AND cook your chicken.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
I was melting out in the sands of North Africa. Y'know, I had this stupid home connection even though I had expensive broadband at my OWN cafe. Like, bummer. Yeah, it was like, I was a haiwan in my own backyard.
Me-wann' download quicky-quicky now!
And that's why I got a Macintosh.
My name is Hassan Adly, and I own an internet cafe.
From the story.
"...as soon as they were installed and properly aimed, they produced a 2Mbps signal at 1km distance."
I sure hope they don't get serious electrical storms in Egypt, or this fellow may find himself with a big problem on his LAN.
If your kids are gonna have 3rd arms, keep your little swimemrs outa the gene pool, keep reading slashdot.
Technology + challenge + good old-fashioned ingenuity = effective and efficient solution. Note - if he wanted to get *really* fancy, he would set up 2 small parabolic dishes to boost signal gain (could be very effective at reducing noise, esp in crappy weather). One dish on the cafe, one on his house, pointed at the other building's antenna (hard to work, but not impossible). It might be cheaper than getting military grade transmitters lol.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Must be something in the water.
Anyone else picture WAPs on the tops of all the pyramids when you read the summary?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
May it be possible that now he won't be stuck in westcoast groupthink?
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
From the article: " Dear Santa, I want a couple of those military-spec 10 Watt amplifiers for Christmas!"
c'mon guys, why not help him out.. I'll start by sending him a buck to get him started..
No todo lo que es oro brilla
After who knows how much time spent on planning and building the project, he finally gets it working, much to his delight: ...these antennae from the start looked as if they meant business, and indeed they did, because as soon as they were installed and properly aimed, they produced a 2Mbps signal at 1km distance. Hurrah! Me do download at home quicky-quicky now!
But, like a true geek,
Future mods:
I am beginning to suspect that my choice of coca-cola cans as reflectors on the Yagi antennae may be affecting signal quality (hence the maximum speed of only 2Mbps). Hence I am looking for a flat-based can that has the same diameter as the coca-cola can.
It works! It's perfect! Now let's take it apart merely for the sake of making it faster!
I guess "quicky-quicky" just isn't quick enough.
only solve the last 3/4 mile problem then? what about that last 1/4 mile?
Uhuh.........
And I was correct that you are an American?
And you wonder why the Arab nations hate your arrogance.........
Linksys outputs 50mw. If you were to go to the FCC regulation maximum of 100mw (1 watt), you would do better.
If you use Cisco's Wireless Calculator Excel spreadsheet, you will see that a 21 dbi parabolic dish (as seen here could grant you 76.1 kilometers.
Now you have problems with this distance. Line of sight, for one.
The common calculation calls for a cone shaped space from each antenna meeting at the middle. This is called the Fresnel Zone The calculator says that this zone, for 76km is 28.2 meters (92 feet). So, you have to have 92 feet of clearance. No trees. No buildings. Nothing.
At this distance (44.5 miles) The earth curvature is 90 feet, somehow your signal must peak over that!
So, you are going to need antenna heights of over 150 meters to set up a 802.11b wireless like of this long.
Most engineers say this is simply not feasable. Other issues, such as antenna alighment, water (nasty multipath bounce), WiFi hotspot interferance, and the actual time it takes for a signal to travel that far are issues as well.
So just remember line of sight. If you have clean line of sight to the other endpoint, and clarity through the Fresenel Zone, you might just have a chance for point-point 802.11b wireless.
Cheers!
Best quote from the article:
"Me-wann' download quicky-quicky now!"
Seriously this is nothing new (I personaly saw this artical over 18months ago).
Despite this blokes seemingly good experince with linksys WAP11 i sugest ppl look around the net and read other peoples bad experinces with these units before making a purchase. HOwever at least this article might help convince people that pringels cans are not suitable for permanent links (despite the hype, pringles can antennas suck.. u can build a much better antenna with some tin cans)
OCAU had a 7km link established (with 'perfect' LOS mind you) which is quite impressive. Link to article
--naked
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
I've used them (version WAP11 2.2) at work. The bridging dies every few hours and does not resume until the unit is power cycled. This seems to be a hardware problem, as it exists across firmware. They will become relable, you can run dlink firmware on them, and run one end as an ap and the other as an AP client. I haven't noticed problems with the bridging on the WAP11 v1.1s, but we only have one pair of them.
(I work for a wireless ISP that made the mistake of using linksys gear for bridging. Nightmare.)
/me wonders if the FCC have juristriction(speling?) in egypt??
No one has come to the defense of Pringles yet!
He quite plainly accuses of making him sick for days. I figured some geek would be defending their favorite snack food by now.
I guess you can't just dive into two cans. Without a digestive system attuned to American junk food, you have to work your way in slowly.
Either that or those pringles could easily have been off. He looked for them for days, who knows how long they'd been around and what summer in the desert does to them.
And I second the observation - clean text no advertisements, what is this the web circa 1996.
Ick
Download pr0n, kill some birds, kill some kittens with the pr0n.
"From the site: Posted December 10, 2001 This is news?"
YES. Had you read it before? I hadnt. I appreciated the link.
Why are you so goddamned picky about something thats free and helpful ?
Why, why, why would anyone in their right mind use a setup like this? And why would it end up on slashdot?
:-) )
2 Piece of crap WAP11s -- $200
2 Crappy homebrew yagis w/cheap ass cable -- $100
Spent 300 bucks for a unstable (needs to be reset) 2mb link that fubars the spectrum for everyone else
or
2 decent WECBs -- $400
2 Cheap but decent Andrews grids -- $200
Spent twice as much, get a stable (set it and forget it) 5mb link, and keep your damn signal on path. Not to mention you could use this at 5km (or 30km w/amps, cost $600 more
Points:
1. Don't use linksys, esp. for backhaul
2. Don't use yagis, horrable FBR (mabey 4:1, if your lucky)
Lordy, that sounded like a scholarly treatise.
Maybe "Search for 'rocks' and get your rocks off"
Of course, that presumes rocks, but I couldn't think of any witty synonyms for ovaries... at least none that would result in a nudie Google result.
Anyway, $$$$$exyGal scores a nice, round 69 on her first go. Me, I scored a goose, but, then again, there's nothing sexy about electromagnetic radiation in West Virginia.
Thank you, Slashdot, for making me the man^H^H^Hboy I am today.
Sorry about that. Us Yankee's often forget to see beyond our own little world.
Since I'm a cisco bigot, let me quote them once again with Cisco's Maximum power listings
Unfortunately, Egypt is not listed there. A lot of the Arab world follows EMEA.
100mw is the maximum across the world. Many countries have lower maximums.
Difficult to connect to a network? You need XWebs!
"Hurrah! Me do download at home quicky-quicky now!"
/.'ers
Damn shame about those
Sorry. Missed my link. Type too fast:
You can check out the various power limitations for 802.11b across the world at this site:
Maximum Power Levels and Antenna Gains
A country to regulation listing is here
or does 1.21 Gigawatts actually equal 121 megawatts?
not to nitpick, but is it 100mw or 1 watt....100 mw = 0.1 w
100mw = 1 watt? Wouldn't that be 0.1 watt?
Wireless Broadband from IceHouse.
Their antennae is up on a hill, so they have pretty good LOS coverage.
I may be way off base here...but I was under the impression that 128 bit encrypted products couldn't be exported without a permit of some kind. The author mentions that a friend in California brought the products to Egypt. Wouldn't that be illegal to export such a product?
And yes, I do find it cool what he did... just curious about the legality by US laws.
Mike
From the article:
:)
Another modification I want to try is putting an Omni-directional antenna on the AP side. I'm combing newsgroups and websites for designs and ideas as time allows. My Dad has a nifty Senao wireless phone with a 60km range, and I'm trying to convince him to lend me his station antenna
Does anhone have any clue what kind of wireless phone does what kind of tricks to get 30+ mile range?
Sorry, guys. Typo on my part. But I hate nits, so thanks for pickin'.
I stand corrected.
1 milliwatt = 0.001 Watt
100 mw is 1 tenth a watt, not 1 watt.
You are correct my primitive Western brethren. We have evolved beyond archaic notions of individual computer systems. The osmotic nature of our digital existence far exceeds your limited comprehension. All hail Caironet. ...damn i want a ps2.
Egypt is a country that harbors many terrorists that will stop at nothing to topple the West. This new development in Egypt with this 1km 802.11b thingamajig is very frightening for our homeland security, and we must do everything we can to protect against this 802.11b threat.
Thank you and God bless America.
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
Points:
1. Don't use linksys, esp. for backhaul
2. Don't use yagis, horrable FBR (mabey 4:1, if your lucky)
But that's the beauty of Yagis. Front to back ratio. You get signal rejection from the back side of the antenna, that you don't want to hear anyway.
Big deal, every time some dumbass breaks the law by using homebrew non certified antennas that pollute spectrum for those of us who know what RF, Fresnel Zones, Fade Margin, Free Space Loss, and how to convert mW to dB, etc. Slashdot acts like it's a new thing. I've been doing professional 802.11b since it was beta at distances of up to 12 miles.
Since when is a 1km 802.11b shot news? We've been doing that for years.
I mean, that doesn't even present any minor technical challenges.. it's EASY.
1km is NOTHING.
I'm using a HyperLink omni and amp on a 20 foot mast on
top of a two story farmhouse. The amp is fed by an Airport
base station. My rev. A iBook gets 2mb from 2 miles away
with it's internal antenna if it can LOS the antenna.
I'm in rural flatland Indiana so it's pretty easy to spot the
house and antenna from far away.
I'm running below legal power limit but I'm feeding the
antenna with a 75 ft. feed from the amp so I'm very
sub optimal. Gotta get things spiffier in the spring
but for now, it's cold out there. No way I'm going up
on the roof for a couple months.
and I quoth:
Me-wann' download quicky-quicky now!
This phrase portrays a stereotype of Asian people who don't speak English well. I demand Slashdot to remove this story from its website immediately or I shall consult with the ACLU on this issue.
Regards,
J. Irving Leibowitz
And as everybody knows you get more chicks if you can tell the difference.
:wq
I think you had better review the heading on this post. Upper case "M" and Upper case "B" = Megabyte not Megabit.
I would say this practice deserves the name 'Google wacking' a lot more than that silly game with two words and one hit.
<grub> Reading
...and the actual time it takes for a signal to travel that far are issues as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the signal travel at the same speed -- the speed of light -- in both wireless and wired mediums (air and copper)? RF is still RF...
nlh
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
But I think it's definitely LESS, not more bub. Sorry to shatter your illusions.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Why? Do you feel that while you are checking out the bowels of Khufu's pad you'll suddenly really need to check your E-Mail on that little PDA?
If the answser is Yes to the above question you need to logout right now and run (don't walk) away from the computer. You are hearby banned from all eletronic gizmo's for the period of 48 hours.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Did you mean: +cancer +"LOS broadband" +fun
No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found.
Your search - +cancer +"LOS broadband" +funny - did not match any documents.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Am I the only person who glanced at this headline and thought that Slashdot was posting headinlines in leet?
Thats probably why you got modded to +5 funny.
...ducks!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
My 486 booted DOS 8 years ago.
Seriously, Is this really news. We have done longer links with less equipment. I think that this is Ho-Hum wireless performance. Its really about a guy taking off the shelf equipment, putting it in a plastic box, and pointing two antenna's at each other and creating a wireless link.
Also I am so tired of the pringle can antenna. Why do people try to use them in installations?? Its FRIGGING garbage, eat the chips and throw it away. I mean why not go buy a decent antenna. Pringle can antenna are simply not that interesting anymore. Now if someone got a pringle can connection up over 10km that would be worthy news.
Just because its on a web site does not mean its that interesting.
RiGgA
So phreak03 claims the site has been up for "several years".
The author of the site, claims on it, that it was posted in Dec'01. Not really what I'd consider "several years".
The Cringely article referenced in the piece was posted Feb 7,2002.
Odd, what?
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
electrons don't go the speed of light thru copper. ;) and there are lots of imperfections in the wires to slow them down.
They go a bit slower as they have mass
The plastic in your coax (or insulation on your twisted pair) has epsilon of more than 1, slowing signal down. Light is fastest in vacuum, in air it's just a notch slower, but when you start adding solid insulation, it can get you down quite a bit.
Paul B.
I have a WAP11 up on the roof here in Breckenridge CO. It's quite cold, and snows a lot. We're at 10,000 ft elevation in the rocky mountains. It's in a tupperware container I bought at Wal Mart. Everything is fine, and has been for a few months now.
But even if it went bad every month, it would be cheaper than the 1.1Mbps SDSL I'm getting for free at home from our office. In fact, it would be over half the price. 50% savings.
But please, clue me in to when my setup will go bad, so I can order another to replace it and keep wasting my money.
Ahh come on Hemos, this page is really old. And besides I've seen 802.11b links work at 12 miles full throttle at 11 mbps. This is nothing!
r00tdenied
Platinum Networks Hosting www.platinum-networks.com
Google is your friend
whee.........
...you can even see the hotel I lived at on this picture... great times...
ehm... what was the article about?
The signal travels at the speed of light through copper, which is about 2/3 the the speed of light in air--or 124000 mph vs 186000. That's still pretty fast. Incidentally, the speed of light through optical fiber is about the same as copper.
Exactly, his stomach has been pampered with food that has direct origins in either the earth or some sort of animal. American stomachs on the other hand have had to grow tough enough to deal with Ho Ho's, McDonald's food, and pringles.
I respect his enthusiam but he's just not ready for top teir junkfood yet.
Vanguard
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
Your knee-jerk stereotyping is no better than the post you're trying to defend.
Nice way to claim the high road.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
it might just be me, but it looks to me like this guy's really from the U.S. and is trying not to broadcast to everyone that he's breaking FCC regulations, among other things....
my main reasons for thinking this:
1) his english is damn near perfect (no offense to anyone on this but knowing a second language as good as your first is easier said than done)
2) everything purchased on his site is is in US dollars
3) the pictures could have easily be taken somewhere in california...
4) his domain is registered in the U.S.
I thought everybody did this?
I'm on the net on an 11 mile link right now, from a 60ft tower in my back yard to the tallest building in my small town. I've got a 24dbi grid dish on my end with a cisco 100mw card, and a 12dbi sector panel on top of the building in town. I need to build a website with all of the pictures of me hanging off of my tower.
Maybe you have "SafeSearch Filtering" turned on in your Google preferences. You should get one link returned.
Yes. But your link layer protocol has to take that latency into consideration.
For the metric system impaired, uppercase KM is not the same as lowercase KM. Uppercase K is for kelvin, and uppercase M is for mega. Lowercase km is kilometre.
Hey, Snake, did you know that childlessness is hereditary? That's right, if your parents never had children, there's a good chance you never will either.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Pentagon Seeks Robots-Prize is $1 Million
WOW that's like what, 20Mbps?!?!? I didn't think 802.11b went that fast.
Check your caps dude. (Must not be a programmer)
This guy has a page hit counter at the bottom of his page, it's quite funny to refresh it and watch it go up extremely fast. 45845... 45900... and so on.
I am a filthy pirate.
This is a joke. I've been doing this for awhile. How about 20-50 miles with bridging and repeating capability to support 1000 users - Now that is news!
Hmmm, guess what, this will take you to their damn ugly website where I'm sure you can find out more! I can't be bothered to read up on the phones, but did notice that they have a range of 802.11b hardware for up to 25kms that this guy would love to have, why? well they have lightning protection (surge arrester) aswell as being watertight and weatherproof with POWER over Ethernet (never heard of it before myself). He'd also have got a standard N-type connector, 273K-323K temperature range (he could still go to high though, just). The only wierd thing (is it not) is that it has a 10 Base T connector for the local network, so your 11Mbs suddenly gets chopped to a theoretical 10 before you even try to get anything out of it.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Under no circumstances should you eat more than a few Pringles at a time! After eating a canful I was positively sick, to the point that all antenna construction was halted for two days!
Sounds like he got the Olestra version...(although even the regular pringles are pretty damn greasy)
I want to know what kind of server his site is running on. No slashdot slowdown that I can detect!
Don't believe me? Check out this. Look at the section called "Microscopic View of Copper Wire".
The electric FIELD in the wire moves at nearly the speed of light. The electrons THEMSELVES are barely moving at all!
--gal
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
The reason it is slow isn't because of impurities. The reasons is that the electrons aren't really travelling through the wire like you think.
You think you put an electron in one end and it comes out the other. But it doesn't work that way, you shove an extra electron into an atom in one end of the wire and it ends up shoving one out of that atom. That one goes into the next atom which is now overloaded so one gets shoved out of there.
So it's really like the atoms are passing electrons along like a bucket bridgade. It isn't even the same electron that comes out the far end.
The reason the electrons don't go at the speed of light is because it takes time for an atom to shed an electron after it gets overloaded. Furthermore the path of travel through the wire isn't the shortest path possible, it rattles around a bit.
Put all this together and you get a propagation of 0.8 to 0.9C usually.
2 kilometers!? Wow, I find that amazing since my linksys WAP can't sustain a connection from 20 feet long enough for me to type this message. I'll never buy Linksys again. I live in an apartment building and my wireless connection goes down every 3 minutes on average (and it only needs to reach the next room). DO NOT BUY LINKSYS!!
Spoken like a true American (i.e. someone with no history or culture)
I'm starting an article boycott. I think I've had enough of seeing poor servers being brought down to their knees by slashdot. I'd like to think that some way can be figured out to make sure we don't harm/piss off any webmasters. This is not a matter of legality, it is completely legal for Slashdot to link to this sites, but I believe it is in the moral duty and mere common decency for Slashdot to figure out some way to not fry some of these webservers.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
I have a hard time getting 802.11b from my basement (where the cable comes in, hence a good place for the firewall/switch/basestation)
/me heads off to google now...
It's a WAP11, and the linksys card won't reach the bedroom on the second floor, opposite end ofthe house. The Orinoco card does slightly better.
Anybody recommend a better antenna? how bout a better base station? I'm planning on changin out the linksys firewall and the WAP11 for an all in one product as the firewall is starting to 'fall down'. (one port is dead, two won't negotiate higher than 10 mbps)
p.s. an alternative would be relocating one of the removable antennas to another more useful location, any suggestions there (URL's ould be appreciated.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
why is the 11Mbs 11Mbs, while the 10Mbs is only theoretical? Maybe all theoretical limits are created equal, but some are more theoretical than others.
:)
i'd have thought that there's enough packet overhead etc on 802.11b that once you strip all of that off their probably just about matched.
On the internet... they can hear you be sarcastic.
1Km is nothing - there are those that done 30miles+ using parabollic dish antenna. Hell, even my 802.11 with a 15dbi omni on top of the roof reach 5 miles.
The secret is in the cable (LMR400 or LMR600) and the right antenna.
Third World you mean. The term Third World was coined by a French journalist. It came from the French term Third State ("Tiers Etat"). The Third State represented the People. The Second State represented the Church. The First State represented the Nobility. It was called the Third State because it included most of the people, but a fraction of the wealth. The Second State and the First State on the other hand included a fraction of the population, but they possessed almost all the wealth. Personally, I wouldn't take this as a term of disrespect, since eventually the Third State revolted and took over.
Don't worry about it too much. USians have no concept of history, and little ability to deduce future occurances from the past, so they are unable to see that the fact that Egypt doesn't currently enjoy its former status as a world-leading civilisation implies that one day, the same thing will happen to the US.
2Mbps at 1km point p-t-p is not much - we do that at work all the time (I'm working for a wireless ISP).
Linksys WAP11 is one of the worst pieces of HW I have seen (I haven't even looked at the worse ones). You need a trained monkey to monitor it (no SNMP - try using Cricket or MRTG) and have to reboot it once a week. Even if you have the monkey, the box won't tell you anything - no signal strength, no retransmission counter, just the packet counters (at least in version 1.009).
If you intend to build such a link, use either decent FHSS devices (but those are quite expensive), or something like SparkLAN (sorry, no URL, try google) - a friend of mine is using those for 5km 8Mbps links (under ideal conditions, of course). These are about $200 in Slovakia, don't know about US (or Egypt).
It is also better to use high-gain (like 24dBi) antennas - have a look at Andrew. Do not use omnidirectional antennas.
Also try to keep the HF cables as short as possible (the guy could have made them some 2ft shorter) and water-proof your connectors - or your link will go down anytime the rain coes (and will not come up after some months due to rust)
running ~22 kilometers with 802.11 equipment. parabolic grids on each end. One end mounted 10 feet off the ground, the other probably about 100 to 150. works perfect at 2 mbs! (older wavelan cards, only capable of that anyway) (No amps either, just a lightning supressor on each end) Ryan kc0lmo http://acit.aero.und.edu/
Ahh, to have American FCC regulations.....
/ ps 430/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a0080 0e0299.html#1013548
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless
Americas - 4W effective power (out of the antenna). You can stick a 13.5dB antenna on a full power 100mW access point, no problem
Europe - 0.1W effective power. You can stick a 0dB antenna on a 100mW access point, or 2.2dB on a 50mW AP.
China - 0.01W effective power. You can stick a 0dB antenna on a 5mW access point. Anything more powerful you cant.
I geuss that rules out legal long range (or even short-range) hops in the UK. Anyone got any more information?
CPC sell a 22dB antenna with a high-power 2.4GHz video sender too. very naughty.
It turns out that what matters is the dielectric constant of the medium in which the electric wave travels.
In the case of wireless, that medium is air, which has a dielectric constant very nearly the same as free space (vacuum).
But electrical signals travelling in twisted pair wire (like category 5 cabling) travel a bit slower because the dielectric material they are travelling in is really the insulation in the wire. That's right, the signal is really travelling in the dielectric, not in the wires, per se.
So the speed of propagation doesn't depend on the properties of the wire conductor, but on the dielectric in between the two conductors.
You can calculate the speed if you know the relative permitivity of the dielectric. This is very closely related to the index of refraction, by the way.
Anyway, in most practical situations (i.e., in non-magnetic materials) the velocity equals the free-space speed of light divided by the square root of the relative permitivity of the dielectric. So in typical fiberglass circuit board, called FR4, where the '4' represents the relative permitivity, the speed of light is C/sqrt(4), or about half the free-space speed. Since the free-space speed is 300 Million meters per second, half of it is 150 million meters per second. You could also say that it is 150 meters per microsecond, or 0.150 meters per nanosecond, or 150 mm/ns.
But this is really only true for signals which are not on one of the surface layers. Surface layer signals experience a medium partially of FR4, and partially of air, so they travel a little faster.
--
MM
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
As a pilot i had to memorize this one until i screamed it out in a cold sweat in the middle of the night..
_______________
1.23 * |/Height of transmitter = Reception distance in Nautical miles
that means if you want to go far.. you have to either be very high above the transmitter (aircraft) or the transmiter must be very high above you.. (really big towers)
my $0.02
now it costs only $65
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
how about switched 7km WiFi...and using no special equipment on the host side.
http://www.vivato.net/
don't you computer people understand that amature radio people have been doing stuff like this for decades, including the launching of their own satalite? Maybe Geeks and ham operators should talk more.
I guess it is official, then.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
There is no grease in Pringles!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
-nt-
Well, I`m no expert but as far as the U.K. is concerned I think I read somewhere that if you are "Amateur Licenced" you can transmit at much higher powers than Joe Public. Take a look at www.wlan.org.uk and the Word document they provide on the main page - How to Set Up a Community Wireless LAN. It implies community wireless LANS can be amateur licenced.
The electric FIELD in the wire moves at nearly the speed of light. The electrons THEMSELVES are barely moving at all!
A lot of people seem confused about that one. I use the following to illustrate what is happening:
An electrical cable is the equivalent of a long rod. When I send electricity through the cable, it is the same as pushing the rod. To send information through the rod, I move my end and you see the movement on your end. The electrons in the cable, just like the rod, doesn't move fast but the signal (movement) is sent through the medium at near light speed.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
The civilization currently in place in Egypt has in fact little in common with the one you're refering to and does not really predate ours - although at times which are now the past it was more tolerant than what we now call the West.
So, it was before 8,000 years that organized agriculture appeared in Egypt.
It was in about 3,100 BCE that Egypt's Old and Middle Kingdoms and the New Empire started, being governed by a succession of some 30 pharaonic dynasties. It was during this time that the management of the Nile river came under one authority.
The pyramids at Giza were built in the fourth dynasty; the Great Pyramid (tomb of Cheops) was built then, too.
Times started a-changing only a few centuries BCE. Egypt was invaded by the Persians, then came under a Roman/Byzantine rule.
It was only in 642 CE (3,000 years after they pyramids had been built and 1,000 years after the last pharaoh had been dethroned!) that Egypt was invaded and conquered by Arab tribes and only then it was forcibly turned into an Islamist state.
So, there once was a civilizatinon in Egypt that predated ours by millenia but it's gone now. Forever.
cheaper + easier.. dunno where i found the link.. 10mbps at 1 km and gpl:ed design.. works perfect even with heavy rainstorms. http://ronja.jikos.cz/
What's a "KM"? If you mean kilometre then write "km".
It would be better if he could have spelt 'sight' properly (context: "line-of-site")...
Score: +1 Insitefool
They don't. They just think that they do. Or was that Iraq...?
Google is NOT your friend! ;)
I noticed that he mounted the antenna using what appears to be conventional Tie Wraps (AKA Ty Wraps). This is a very bad idea as the UV in sunlight will quickly break down the plastic Tie Wraps, turning them extremely brittle and the antenna will come crashing down to the roof.
I sent him e-mail to warn him about this but wanted to warn other Slashdot readers. If you must use Tie Wraps outdoors, use UV-resistant Tie Wraps which are usually, but not always, black. But even then, I would not recommend them in a structural role. It's fine to use them to keep wires neatly bundled and routed, but don't use them in "mission-critical" applications where a Tie-Wrap failure would leave something non-functional.
Sheesh.
When I was at Sharm El Sheikh (a dive location on the south end of the Sinai) a few years ago I was getting nearly 50 baud. It sounds like at least the Internet cafes there can provide reasonable access.
Hello everyone,
Stop! I can't take all this attention!
Anyway I wanted to shamelessly use this opportunity to post some comments:
Since I wrote that article my network has improved significantly. I now use proper N-connectors and RG213 cable, and I've got some links at about 5km now. I now have ten nodes installed, including one AP with a 9dbi omni.
All my AP's survived the summer and winter with no problems, the oldest units have been up for more than a year now.
If anyone is wondering how well the WAP11 deals with heat, they would be interested to know that last summer we had 47degC temps, and besides the operational nodes staying up, I left a WAP11 in my car. When I got to it it was warped and melted - but it worked anyway!
I never expected this kind of attention, else I would have updated my article.
Thanks everyone for the comments and emails!
Regards, Hassan
100mw != 1w. it's 0.10w. (fyi, incase you were asleep in RF101; 1000mw = 1w)
and based off that; your other "calculations" are pobably wrong also.
please go back to school.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
In the SI system the symbol for kilometre is "km". The bit about "line-of-site" has been already mentioned.
Learn.
comoon 4 KM is fairly easy to accomplish ? I got like dozen of 2-3 Km Links running at higher speeds than 2 megs
It's called a troll cockbiter. How about you stick your anti-American rage in your pocket and relax.
Has anyone here noticed that slash put up the title that says, 2MB (MegaByte) not 2Mb(Megabit), they are different....
Um, I don't mean to rain on you peoples parade, but I do feel there is more pressing news right now -- LIKE THE DEATH OF AMERICAN ICON STEPHEN KING!!!
He was found dead IN SOVIET RUSSIA this morning. Details forthcoming.
God bless his family and may he rest in peace.
headlines in leet
Apparently noone in the submitter/editor chain understands SI units like the rest of had to learn in high school. It should probably be:
1 km 802.11b @ 2Mb/s
Case is important in SI units. One still has to read Geek, but at least it's meaningful to fluent speakers of Geek.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm getting 2 Mbps, sometimes 5.5 in clear weather. My house rooftop is exactly 4.5 statute miles (3.9 nautical miles, measured using handheld GPS unit) from the ISP's tower. above ground level. I have absolutely clear line of site to the tower, my house sits on a small hill. I have an Andrew 24dbm Mag Grid parabolic antenna and am using the Linksys WET11 bridge which has 19dbm (79.5mw) of transmit power. I mounted the WET11 in a weatherproof plastic box on the pole right under the antenna so I only have 4 feet of coax from the antenna to the radio, and run the ethernet and power wires about 75 feet back into my house since they are not so distance-sensitive. The ISP is using an Orinoco access point, I don't know which model, at the tower with an omni dipole antenna 300 feet above ground.
So what's the big deal about going 1KM with Linksys gear? Why is that even newsworthy? Hundreds of folks are routinely going much further distances with 802.11b wireless and getting decent thruput.
No, it's not groundbreaking. But the article is useful, well written and pretty funny at times.
Actually useable bandwidth on 11mbit once you add timing, preambles, etc, is about 5-6mbit, or even less. Typical throughput on an 11mbit clean link is 300k/s.
10mbit should be more than enough to feed the data to the AP.
*Tim Allen Grunt*
"More power..."
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
Come on folks, it isn't that hard:
site - a location (eg web SITE, workSITE )
sight - the ability to see (eg line of SIGHT, he has excellent eyeSIGHT)
Will it be quicky-quicky for much longer?
Use the Linksys WET11 ethernet bridge instead. Make sure you're running the newest firmware version, which fixes the timeout/sleepmode bug.
:-)
The WET11 has an 80mw radio (19dbm) which is 30mw more powerful than the WAP11. If you need NAT/DHCP/firewall-filtering, use an outboard router or a Linux box running the Shorewall frontend to iptables. Hell, if you're running a Linux box to do your NAT/firewall stuff, why bother with the bridge at all... just get a Cisco or Orinoco 802.11b PCI network card and have the full 100mw xmitter
It's also km not KM.
Can "basic knowledge of SI units" be made a requirement for Slashdot moderators please?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Now I realise that any theoretical maximum is unlikely to be achieved, but by the same token a 10Mb ethernet connection is not going to get 10mbs! Just seemed strange to me to include 10bast-T anywhere, I know I haven't used it for about 4 Years anywhere!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Good sentiment, but Egyptians are from the northern part of Africa.
Niggers are niggers. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.
willhill@hesiod:~$ ping www.d128.com
PING d128.com (64.227.2.228): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 64.227.2.228: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=57.8 ms
64 bytes from 64.227.2.228: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=39.6 ms
64 bytes from 64.227.2.228: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=42.5 ms
--- d128.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 39.6/46.6/57.8 ms
willhill@hesiod:~$ whois 64.227.2.228
OrgName: Interland
OrgID: INTD
NetRange: 64.224.0.0 - 64.227.255.255
CIDR: 64.224.0.0/14
NetName: INTERLAND-5
NetHandle: NET-64-224-0-0-1
Parent: NET-64-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: A.NS.INTERLAND.NET
NameServer: B.NS.INTERLAND.NET
NameServer: C.NS.INTERLAND.NET
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
But so what? My complaint is that I can't use the wires that hook up to my house.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Uhm, not mph. Miles per second. 124000 mph isn't fast at all compared to light speed.
Now with that subject line (the news, not this post) it is for sure.
Gosh, they even threw in an @!!!
my
I know that a lot of webmasters need and value the hits they get because it affects their advertising revenue and, for that reason, are loath to let users view static cached versions because they don't collect the right counts.
But I think you have a good point.
There ought to be some agreed upon way for sites to defer to mostly-static caches located downstream closer to the big pipes. Call it a cacheing router.
Would there be much of market for spiky demand service? It's not like Slashdotting saturation is going to do much for your web site's popularity. If 90% of peak visitors timeout, they're likely to leave with a less than favorable impression anyway.
If the cache operators would simply save rudimentary static hit counts and client IP addresses and then send them to you later (even perhaps by emulating the client side HTTP requests at a trickle rate), would you be happy?
Would owners of big services be willing to offer such services?
Would there be a simple way to flag that your site would defer to assistance during times of stress?
Or is this all a stillborn idea?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Nice to see an educated man doing what he darn well pleases in a muslim dictatorship.
"And you wonder why the Arab nations hate your arrogance......."
Unless you're an arab, they hate you too, you stupid fuck.
"Don't worry about it too much. USians have no concept of history, and little ability to deduce future occurances from the past, so they are unable to see that the fact that Egypt doesn't currently enjoy its former status as a world-leading civilisation implies that one day, the same thing will happen to the US."
Riiight... You can compare America to Rome, or to Egypt, but the fact is, during those days, what percent of the entire world was speaking latin or egyptian? Now ask yourself, Britain aside (a so-so vacation spot, but not a world leader), what percent of the world speaks English? America will remain the world leader. Check your stats. We work more hours a week, work harder in those hours, which lead to more burnouts, killings, and suicides, but such is the price for hard work. Oh yeah, and rome and egypt never had the nuke, or instant communications. The communications alone probably would have kept rome around to the present day. And as to why I post anonymously?
Vicious truth-haters, which I like to call Karma Arabs, will dive-bomb the twin towers of my karma.
Pipe up, foreigner. We're about done with Afghanistan. Iraq is next. And after North Korea becomes a REAL republic and stops giving the term a bad name, we'll proabably be visiting a theater near you.
"It's called a troll cockbiter."
A "troll cockbiter"? A device meant only to bite the cocks of trolls?
Or did you mean to put a comma in there, you idiotic dog-fucking buffoon? Yes, I think you did.
The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for
experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute
for intelligence.
-- Lyman Bryson
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