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Using an Old Satellite Dish as a WLAN Antenna
=m8s=Dark Underlord writes "I was browsing for wireless stuff and came across this link that shows how to use an old satellite dish as an 802.11 antenna." The directions tout the range as being 10 miles given line of sight. We've had other stories about building antennas, but I think these are cooler because of their focused nature, but a Primestar dish is a little tougher to locate than a Pringles can or a floppy disk.
Days ago. And IIRC, it was a /. article that inspired me.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I saw the tin can at the focus point of the dish. Wouldn't a Low Noise Block (LNB) converter be more efficient for signal transmission?
My grandparents have a satelite dish that's about 10 feet in diameter... so should that give access to about 30 miles away? (I know it wouldn't, but it'd be neat to crank the amps)
Karma: Good, or bust!
Where I work our internet connection is via a WISP that uses this "technology". We have a Primestar dish on an elevated pole aimed at a mountaintop 12 miles away. 5Ghz and also a backup 802.11b radio with Yagi antenna that needs an amplifier to go that distance, but does so fairly well. The less-informed employees think the "dish" points to a satellite, not noticing the odd angle it's mounted at :)
http://www.planetc.com/ is the ISP
In a past life, I used to provide ISP services to a company in Iowa that manufactures dishes used by many of the top names, including DirecTV. I checked their website, www.winegard.com, and it doesn't appear they yet have a consumer distribution channel. But if you want a bunch of dishes, these folks can probably provide them.
FWIW- I toured the plant, and saw sheet metal stamped into dishes. It was impressive.
>>so 24dB is 2^8 or 256 times the signal strength... ... of an isotropic radiator. Got one handy?
I really wasn't trying to be funny, just commenting on the sad situation of a large percentage of low-income families: broadband, satellite, manicures, and pricey clothes all seem to come before vaccinations, sanitation, and education.
I did a similar setup recently for my father's bicycle stores and here is a photo gallery of the results. I have an aversion to Linksys (their tech support is horrible) and so I became a D-Link convert a few months back. We bought eight DWL-2000AP access points/bridges (you can select the mode via the web interface) and eight of their DWL-P100 Power-over-Ethernet kits. We linked our warehouses to our stores via 24dBi grids (from hyperlinktech.com) and, like you, placed our APs on the mast underneath the antennae. For our enclosures, I chose some inexpensive but very well-made Davis Instruments enclosures. They are NEMA-4 rated and are sealed against the elements. We're a dealer for Davis so we got them really cheap. Being in South Texas, I was concerned about heat in the boxes so I built custom heat shields, which fit around the NEMA enclosures. I built these from R-Matte (which looks like foam plywood) and foil tape. I also used the foil tape to turn cheap-o indoor grade CAT5e into psuedo-outdoor grade cable.
Chris
These days, they wait for complaints of interference before they send out the vans, and there are far fewer of them than there used to be. The mentality has changed from being the airwaves police to transferring the responsibility of discovering violations to operators, and the public. The only thing they do now is investigate complaints. Seems to make sense to me -- sorta the "no harm, no foul" rule.
So all you out there with yer big 24dB antennas, while you might potentially be in technical violation, no one's going to come knocking at the door unless you end up screwing someone else over. So be good to your neighbors, use some discretion, and lo and behold the government isn't going to smite you for using the resource YOU OWN in a way that harms no one.
Some libertatian snuck his way on to the commission somehow in the 90's. This actually seems to make some sense.
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I was looking at the slightly elliptical curve of the dish and it occured to me, the Star Choice dishes (Canadian) are designed to pick up two satellites at once. It could maybe give a wider line of sight if someone modified something like this. I think the feed can would have to be modified for something like this to work. Think something like this might work? or would I be wasting my time?
I used to live in a relatively old area of town, and seem to recall seeing gigantic dishes (which, I assume, were used to pick up broadcast signals, or some archaic form of satellite TV...this is all speculation on my part, of course) ... firstly, does anybody else know what I'm talking about, and secondly, would you be able to use one of those? :)
what sort of signal would you get, do you think?
I know they're not as desirable as Primestar dishes, but Dish Network and DirecTV dishes work also. I got a couple for free just by asking. Go to the place that you bought your satellite system from (What, you're on cable? Well, get with it!), and ask. My source said that they occasionally would have a spare dish from an installation, and after a few years in business they had a heap of them in the basement, still in the box. They were more than happy to let me walk out with a couple.