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Wide Area Wireless on a Shoestring Budget?
wkytechhead asks: "My father owns a greenhouse operation that covers a few dozen acres. He has a number of greenhouses some up to 1000' plus apart that he would like to network. Currently he is using a HomePNA based network via regular RJ12. He has decided that he would like to go at least partially wireless. Some consideration has been given to using the backbone with fiber convertors, but he would really like to do full wireless. I have checked into homemade and commercial 'Cantennas' but I am not sure if they are worth the money. How would my fellow geeks go about wirelessly networking a large outdoor area for as cheap as possible?"
You should check out these antennas from HyperLink Technologies. For outdoor applications these should work very well for you.
Some golf courses and other large areas use remote-DSL for such links. Maybe that would apply to him? Many cisco DSL modems can be operated in server mode, only downside is you must run RJ12 separately to each location.
Otherwise, run ethernet?
if you are going to go wireless, get some good APs and sector antennas, or alternately setup a bunch of repeater stations that use different channels to avoid interference.
--IronHelix
May not be the cheapest, but extra geek points.
don't fix it
minidishes (commonly used in the UK for digital satellite television) can be easily adapted to use a WiFi signal boosters. They're highly directiuonal of course, but ranges of 2 or more kilometers LOS are not unknown. Plus, no boosting equipment is required, just a modification to the antenna.
but it sounds like a great use for a mesh networking.
For outdoors, I think your SOL, but for inside the greenhouses, investigate something called "leaxy coax." It's basically a coaxial cable with little to no shielding, and a couple of companies have recently made it usuable with 802.11b/g.
Wire cheap antennas to cows.
:)
Problem solved
Since you have greenhouses, evidently, unobstructed line-of-sight should not be a problem. I'd say, some short-range networks connected by FSO links, as per http://ronja.twibright.com/
1. use greenhouses for greenhouse-like things 2. ??? 3. profit! 4. buy dedicated satellite
oh my dear please buy an ad..
I would find the central point and place broadcast point there and at the end of that one range place 2 at the other points to max. range and give full coverage. Nice idea. I am working on something like that for my wine cellar.
24dBi to go 1000' is insane overkill. You could do 1000' with 5dBi
Create a beowulf cluster of plants!
Unless the sites are spaced something like along a road, a mesh network would probably work and be much easier to setup as well as much more robust (I presume the network carries vital info on temperatures, greenhouse equipment status, etc).
2 2/wirelessmesh.html for an overview
See http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2004/01/
Eat Lamb, 1 million coyotes can't be wrong
That inexpensive means inefficient.
I can't beleive ThinkGeek is selling dressed up Pringles cans for $45. Sickening. /. a while back too).
Go buy a can of pringles and use that. Find info here: http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448
(I'm also pretty sure I saw this on
Just buy a grip of WRT54G APs, get your choice of custom firmware, turn up the wattage a tad, and use WDS.
Then, spread them evenly. I'm sure it'd work famously.
Pretty Pictures!
why not use a standard rj13 that everyone has.
http://eika.no-ip.info/
and cheap commodity equipment will thusly suffice.
I've had great luck with a 24dBi Parabolic Antenna at over 1.5 miles away.
. htm
If all of these sites are within a mile with reasonable line of sight and not many trees in the way, I'd suggest putting the parabolic antennaes at each location directed toward your main location.
At the main location go with a nice sector antenna array.
Heres a link:
http://squitter.com/products/antennas/parabolic24
Homebrew your AP and end nodes with a workstation or soekris board and a netgate radio...or connect the antennas to commercial AP/Bridge units.
Depending on how many sites you have to link, you should get out at a reasonable cost.
This is our amateur radio repeater that uses VoIP to link to other repeaters around the world. The link is 802.11b
Here is the AP that provides access.
Nothing special to do a 1000' link. Just a parabolic grid antenna on the client side.
Here are some parabolic grid antennas.
--fatboy
Unless you have an FCC radio operators license, you may not legally perform any antenna modifications (under part 15 rules).
Pickup a WRT54G, some directional and omnidirectional antennas and get the SVEASOFT firmware.
www.trevormarshall.com/waveguides.htm He explains the how and why, so you cab build a 180 degree waveguide.
He should just run a power cable between the two points he wants to network, and every so often connect a wireless bridge to it.
It is quite possible, though not very easy, to do, and there are already many excellent tips posted in this thread so I will not repeat them. What nobody seems to be talking about, though, is that you have to be aware of the gotchas of any technology you are going to use. Wireless security is much different than wierd, because your adversary only needs a $50 laptop and Airsnort (so called "war driving") instead of much much more expensive hardware needed to intercept wired communication especially in a shielded medium like STP for Ethernet. The security of your systems is something that you have to design before you do anything else. You cannot just say: "I'll add security later." That's why it is important to understand how the systems in question really work. Good luck.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
...if you can find some. My friend's dad had some parabolic wireless antennas stuck in his basement, and he gave them to my friend for his personal use(my friend's dad is also a network engineer). The antennas were for 802.11, and in fine working order. I would recommend trying to pick up some cheap but decent wireless antennas wherever you can find them, for example in a (used?) hardware store, computer parts shop, or other such similar retail outlet.
In my experience, used bits of IT technology are usually in fine working order, having been sold by their owner when something newer came along.
This is a serious and valuable post.
Cantennas are the wrong way to go, as their propagation pattern approximates linear, like the yagi designs. What you want is an omni, sometimes called marine, antenna that will spread signal in a plane. If you're in a greenhouse, I'm assuming you don't want strong signal going up or down, but horizontal in the plane of people walking around. Here's an example of one I grabbed from Google: radiolabs omni antenna For about another $30 you can pick up pigtails on eBay that let you attach these to the usual netgear/buffalo/d-link/linksys/etc. accesspoints. You can place them for effective 10Mbit coverage about one for every 2 acres assuming clean line of sight to the antennas and no major obstacles. Note that vegetation would definitely impact signal propagation in the 5.4ghz band.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Wow. Your WC must be really big. I'm impressed.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Try USBWifi
:)
I wont put the link to my site on here because it's on donated bandwidth and the coral cache for it doesnt seem to be working from here.
But anyway: cheap USB wifi adapter (802.11G ones are coming down in price) + USB extension cable + any sort of parabolic metal dish. The guy from the link above is a great fan of Chinese cookware, as these require very little modification.
I made a couple out of mesh food covers and frames of 20x1.4mm aluminium strip. Cheap and easy to build. They're not in continuous use at the moment because I've yet to weatherproof the adapter.
Good luck
Sometimes the opposite is true. For example, moving a cart on wheels is inexpensive and efficient. Building a six-legged hydraulic walker for the cart is expensive/complex and inefficent.
At my place of work, we have a wireless backbone that links over 16 miles. When one of our primary units went down due to a lightning problem, we constructed a cantenna and pointed it at the remote ap. The backbone was linked up once again and it worked great! We eventually replaced the redundant link with a 24dbi parabolic, but it's worth the small amount of time to check out the cantenna solution, as it's significantly cheaper than the parabolics.
No one goes around saying 'excuse me sir, I need to check your antennas.' So if he did do it, no one would really check.
I would have workers every 100' and they would throw packets back and forth. The workers would not need to know TCP/IP since they would not even need to operate at Level 1, they would just act as repeaters/fowarders, only needing to know whether to throw a packet to the next or to the previous worker and that would be easy because they would just have to make sure not to return the packet to the worker they got it from. This repeater/forwarding mechanism works well and requires no additional expenses since the workers would be hired to do actual work in the garden anyway. Oh and did I mention the workers are wireless as well?
Not,
At my house. Seems to depend on what type of objects the signal has to travel through.
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
That doesn't make it legal, which was the original poster's point. I can piss in your yard under the cover of darkness and never have you know. But that doesn't make it legal or right, now does it.
Yeah. The FCC typically just responds to complaints. As long as you don't paint a picture of Janet Jackson's nipple on the antenna you should be fine.
blog
Can't get much cheaper. http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html
P-Com Speedlan units are great. @$900 each, rock solid, automatic mesh networking (each units is a router and a repeater). Adding units is brainlessly easy.
Could you use a green house as a big antenna?
Buy a WRT54GS for each location, then learn about the availible wifi antennas and read their specs. Install sveasoft firmware on the routers. Purchase antennas and mounts that meet your needs. Read directions (very easy) for setting up WDS across all of your access points. With the linksys AP's, you must use antenna connectors that mate to RP-TNC (the connector type on the radio). In addition, you can use two antennas on each router. You may go for one panel and one cantenna in one location, with a single omni at another.
DSL modems are cheap; DSLAMs (the other end) are NOT.
I did some ISM band installation jobs before and, while popular, I hate this model. If you want a directed beam, I suggest a dish antenna over this type in all cases.
Well, at least you'd know which way the thing was pointed...
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.403468/sc.5/c
Three levels of gain - 15, 19, and the highest being a very respectable 24dbi. That would probably be overkill for your use - just placing the 15dbi gain one up on each end and aiming them properly should give you an excellent signal point to point. They're fully weatherproof too, unlike the "pringles can" jobbies, and they're actually reasonably priced. The 24 is under $70 iirc and you don't have to buy a pigtail. (cantenna pigtails cost as much as the cantenna does!)
(original link in case that one is a temp... http://www.rangeextender.com/)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
This doesn't strike me as thrifty advice, given that the guy asking the question has already rejected $45 "cantennas" as cost-ineffective.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The first question you have to ask yourself is what you want to get out of the network. Do you want full roaming capabilities, or do you want localized points of presence in every greenhouse? Are you wanting to implement VoIP? Network aware control and monitoring systems?
If you are looking for a setup like what I had (points of presence in every greenhouse), all you need are some cheap(ish) base stations for the endpoints, and a kick ass 24dB omnidirectional antenna for the master base station at the head office. Build small networks at each pop and bango. If you want roaming in a few areas, throw in a small consumer wireless base stations and hook it up to the pop.
If, however, you are looking at using the network for business critical voice services or control and monitoring systems, then you had better look seriously at fiber (fiber ring preferably). You never know when some bird lays a massive shit on the antenna. Wireless is simply not as reliable as wired.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Wireless antennas that extend range significantly (directional and omnidirectional): http://dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=1&sec=0 #cid_59
Yeah, there you go, just ask slashdot to offer a solution to a problem you haven't defined. Just what is this network for? Simple monitoring of things at low bandwidth? Sending constant video streams of the greenhouse conditions back to the office? What?
WHY a network? WHAT applications? It's entirely likely that whatever anyone here recommends won't match what you're trying to do.
Define your problem before asking for solutions to it.
Good luck
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
True, but they are weatherproof and 'just work'. Might be cheaper over the long haul.
If range is an issue you might want to look into this http://www.digit-life.com/articles/homepna/ Basically HPNA over coax seems to be able to go for over a mile.
RadioLabs.com has an excellent selection of wireless antennas, coax, and connectors that will work for you.s s-2.html
http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/wirele
Also, I agree with an earlier post suggesting the Linksys WRT54G or GS running the SveaSoft firmware.
http://www.sveasoft.com/
With a slightly better antenna and a few WRT54G's in a WDS configuration, you could easily provide both wireless and wired connections in the remote buildings and have some wireless coverage between the buildings as a bonus.
With enough of the WRT54G's in the WDS configuration and using OSPF, you could create a "self healing" component to the network.
G'Luck
No to mention that they would mostly likely be illegal to use in the US.
There is a limitation on the maximum output these FCC part 15 devices can have. With the average output of normal 802.11 devices combined with this 24 dBi gain antenna would most certainly be illegal.
There is no way I would do anything illegal in a commercial business.
That is way overkill and would be difficult to aim correctly anyway. The higher the gain the more perfect you aim has to be. And aiming at a target 1000' away is damn hard, even with laser sights.
You'd be suprised the kind complaint they respond to. My house used to have a very large antenna for TV(35 foot I think) because we were on the dark side of a mountain and couldn't recieve a signal from NYC. We also had a special motorized/pointable CB antenna. The guy next door, instead looking at the mountain and thinking, "hey the only reason they can a signal is because they have a giant antenna" thinks "hey they are plotting against me, and blocking my signal"
The FCC actually came and did tests, said that was silly and went home.
=1000101
I've used those. They work good but they're a little unwieldy, and probably overkill in this case. (I used a pair of 24dbi parabolics once to test a 5 mile link. It worked, but thoughput wasn't great. In retrospect, the link may have been degraded by the tinting of the window I was transmitting through at one end.)
I've also used panel antennas from superpass, many of which have smaller sidelobes than the parabolics, and are smaller and (usually) cheaper.
At 1000', you might not even need directional antennas (if you have good wireless cards), or you might get away with a directional at only one end.
http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/Lov ellTelescopeJBO.html :)
Hard to answer without understanding how its used. Maybe he wants to browse with his latop anywhere on his land. Or maybe he has sophisticated and critical monitoring and control of his greenhouse operations run by this.p hp) near the centre of his land with a high gain omnidirectional antenna should give pretty impressive range. If his property is say 50 acres square then thats 0.5km on a side, so not really that far. The only question then is does that provide enough signal strength to be directly received by comodity embeded antennas or will each greenhouse need a directional antenna pointing at the omni on the mast. I'm not sure at what point the FCC would regulate mast height for an ISM band.
Regardless, my first approach is try what is simple. I presume its reasonably flat and obsticle free land. A simple, adequately tall mast (http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/antenna_height.
In a few years if this is the low bandwidth control application I imgine it really is then it might be solved by a zigbee mesh solution at very low cost and maintainance.
Or you can search froogle for them
"2.4 ghz parabolic antenna"
Lowest price is around 33$ for a 15dbi gain. 50$ is about right for a 24dbi gain. Though a parabolic is only going to be truly handy for sight to sight. They do have low cost omni directional antennas. This is difficult to advise without knowing the layout.
ie, possibly sight to sight parabolic for the backbone link and then omni's distributed throughout.
If you are really worried about distance, just dig up a router that can be tweaked for a bit more output power.
Now, if completely unsure of what your needs are, here is a handy calculator to help you figure your distance needs out.
http://www.signull.com/fsc.php
For the uninformed, cable loss is going to be calculated by the amount of signal loss expected when using some portion of cable from the transciever to the antenna. It should be expressed quite clearly on type of cable you are going to be using.
There are also some common models output numbers listed there as well.
That really sums up everything. It should be quite cost effective to implement a few antennas and a cheap 802.11b setup.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Parkervision http://www.parkervision.com/ has an access point with standard antennas that when used with it's cards has a 1 Mile open field range. Since a farm should be pretty open field, 1000 feet should not be a problem. They have a money back guarantee if not satisfied. They used 1 AP to cover an entire small airport in Florida, see http://www.parkervision.com/company/press_room/new s_by_id.php?id=126
This remainds me of a pen I have that has a red led at the top. It's turned on when you get a message/a call on your cellphone. Yes, you have to have your cellphone near (ie: in the same room).
How about this:
http://www.belkin.com/networking/
Belkin's Pre-N Wireless supposedly has 800% wider coverage and is totally affordable. It might not be what the stand ends up being in the future, but hey, as a totally proprietary system it looks to kick butt!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Well, it depends what you want to do, but if you want just generic Internet access, Verizon's broadband access might cover you. $80 a month for unlimited access and typical speeds of 300-500 kbps. Just pop the PC card in and skip all the WiFi hassle.
Cingular Wireless will be rolling out their 3G network this year too and next year it should have HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) which will give you ~3Mbps downlink. So, I'm afraid that with those sort of speeds available and flat rate pricing it's going to be tough for DSL and some cable modem packages to compete.
Even if 3G isn't available, 2.5G cellular networks from either Sprint (1X), Verizon (1X) or Cingular (EDGE) can still give a good speed and wide area access.
Finally, if he just wants to keep up on email, get him a Blackberry or a T-Mobile Sidekick II. Those both work excellently and are handy to carry too.
Will a powerline networking signal travel 1000'? If all the buildings have electrical, that would be more secure than wireless.
If money is no limit, run fiber-optic and bury it deep...
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Sometimes the opposite is true.
With software in particular :)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Spend $75 rent a ditch witch for a day. Run some conduit between the greenhouses, it's about $.20/foot if that. Hardwire the buildings and put in access points. (I'm imagining there is some equipment that needs to be mobile) Put some thought into how you want to wire them all together with budget in mind and you'll have a large (physically) network that in the end doesn't cost too much.
In the end you will realize how gratifying it is to work with your hands to complete a project like that. Don't forget to buy wire pulling lubricant and put in hand holes (places to access the conduit) every 200' or so.
---------
Swearing is the crutch of inarticulate mother fuckers.
Wifi has lots of issues with interference. It shares bandwidth with cordless telephones, microwave ovens, and too many other similar devices to name.
Also, wifi is short range - directional antennas are at best a partial solution, and aren't much easier in many cases than running cat5.
You never specified the actual problem you're trying to solve. You already have telephone wires going to the greenhouses, what is wrong with your existing setup? Speed? Connection problems?
Or is it just plain "Geek factor"?
Before investing a time-consuming, unreliable 802.11b/g/n network, I'd wait a year and deploy wimax. It's MADE for longer ranges, and MADE for higher bit rates, and it's also supposed to have reduced sensitivity to interference.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Dude, your aim totally sucks. At 24 dBi you have to aim very precisly because the beam in quite narrow.
And the more narrow the beam the more effected by obstructions it will be.
Multi-Point
http://www.pulsewan.com/wireless/laser_mp_menu.ht
Point-to-Point
http://www.pulsewan.com/wireless/laser_pp_menu.ht
Just convince the city to run two perpendicular streets through your property. The resulting intersection will produce no fewer than 4 Starbucks coffee shops, each with their own wi-fi transmitter. Problem solved.
legal is not the same thing as right. illegal is not the same thing as wrong. please take a rudimentary-level ethics class before attempting to lecture people on morals and legality. thanks.
With ISDN. Lots of folks did it.
This is the first time I've heard that it was possible with DSL. Please give us more details.
You could also buy a DSLAM. I've got a used CopperEdge I'd like to get rid of. 24 IDSL ports and 24 SDSL ports, routeable from the ethernet jack on the front.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I do appreciate it when getting an answer.
I've never understood the whole dBi to range conversion. I know it's not direct, but how do you figure it out? I'm going to try and put up a link between my parent's store and their house, a distance of just under half a mile. The house sits up on a hill, and I think I can get a straight shot from the roof of one building to the roof of the other. There might be a tree or two in the way. What should I expect to use? What problems will I encounter?
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
You do have electricity to the greenhouses, right?
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/352
- I reccomend buying a few Linksys WRT54GS boxes for getting your feet wet. They're ~US$50. Don't cheap out and buy the WRT54G's for a few bucks less as the GS has a bit more flash memory you might want a year or two down the road.
- Download the free Sveasoft firmware, or any of the other distribs out there. Sveasoft is due for a new release any-day-now, however if you want beta versions or access to their support board you'll need to pony up US$20.
- Determine which spots you'll want wireless in, then set up some test spots in 'em and figure out what kinda reception you'll get, the characteristics of your greenhouses, what kinda output works best.
- Figure out if 802.11a, or b, or g, works best for your needs. You can also hugely increase the transmission power with the third party firmwares but you're also increasing the noise (and heat!) too so test-test-test.
- Power will be a big concern, you'll want as clean a supply as you can manage. Also a reasonable climate, these boxes are tough but if you can avoid abusing 'em you'll get longer service. The #1 killer is heat buildup & the #2 is power surges.
- On a map apply what you've learned from your testing, figure out where you'll want base stations, repeaters, where they'll tie into the existing HomePNA, where you can run Ethernet, etc. Only after this go ahead an purchase the deployment hardware (it'll probably be US$10 cheaper by then.)
- If security is a big concern then not only turn on wireless encryption but also set up a proper VPN. The Linksys WRT54GS/Sveasoft's can be endpoints, or servers, or pass-through, so take advantage of this.
Finally, keep an eye on your traffic. All the security in the world isn't worth anything if nobody is listening for problems. Document everything. Write a guide for folks to follow when you're out of town, or laid off, or whatever. Keep a closet of spares & make some contingency plans.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
my former instructor has a page that was Slashdotted a year or two ago.. Gives instructions and good info to make your own for very cheap. http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/
So, the limit is 30 dbm (1000 milliwatts), most wireless cards are about 15dbm, which gives us 15 dbm of slack. 24dbi exceeds 6 dbi by 18, so this would be illegal for a point-to-multipoint topology. However, if it was a point-to-point link, that 18dbi of excess gain results in a reduction of only 6dbm of permitted power, so you could use a 24dbm radio (or a little over 200mw) legally. (Though ianal or an rf engineer, so take this with a grain of salt.)
seriously... running a conduit is fab and all
and very cheap for short runs... but when you're talking about wiring up greenhouses scattered across
12 acres?? Gets a bit more expensive.....
Still... it's the best solution for the long haul.
Wireless really has a lot of problems still.
If HomePNA is working well as a "backbone", why change it. Just add wireless AP's coming off the HomePNA where you want to have wireless access.
Actually that is what I do in my home. WiFi couldn't get everywhere so since I had some HomePNA cards around, I just created a HomePNA long distance link with a couple of WiFi nodes at the ends.
Try this simple and trusted design of the good ol' spider omni http://flakey.info/antenna/omni/quarter/. Been using it a lot and will extend an AP's range to between 300 and 500 metres (that's around 900 to 1,200 feet).At the Bristol Wireless project we've used them on roof-tops to hop from point to point in a mesh network, I'd imagine it'd work just as well for greenhouses.
$180/node.
You can install SIP for VoIP if you want.
Seastead this.
At that distance, regular old 802.11 will be fine. Two $50 directionals, use a of the shelf AP at one end and an off the shelf network card at the other. Keep the cable runs short. Long cable runs mean you need rather expensive cable. If you're unable to place the PC with the wireless card close to the antenna, use a Pentium class throwaway stuffed in the attic to bridge it to Ethernet, or a second AP. (Make sure the two AP will interoperate without too much firmware headache.)
You should be able to deal with minor tree obstruction.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I don't know anything about the specs or details, but there have been several stories over the years about how some folk wire up the Burning Man festival for wireless coms every year. Some Google searching would probably bring up the details.
At the first glance I read the title as: 'on a Slashdotter Budget'! :)
www.smartbridges.com
the all in one units.
simple. cheap.
take a look at these guys, they've built quite a nice city-wide public wireless network and since they're a non-profit organisation they might have some insights on how to do it on a budget:
http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/
I can freely surf the net from my bed thanks to these people (well, on my g3 ibook that is, the pobo g4 can forget it..)
Use a link budget calculator. (The link is one I just found with google).
Basically, you need a certain signal to noise ratio for a digital radio connection to work at all at its lowest speed. Increased signal to noise ratios get you more speed and some margin of reliability.
Signal decreases with the square of the distance. If you double the distance you'll have one quarter the signal, or 6db less (decibels are logarithmic - 3db is a ratio of 2, 10db is a ratio of 10). So, everything else being equal, you'd need 6db more gain on the antenna at either end to get the same results.
For your particular scenario you'd probably be fine with just a couple cantennas or other moderate-gain antennas.
One thing to watch out for when shooting through trees is that they may not have leaves now but they will in a few months!
will give you 80+ miles range with 200kbs data rate. They also have unlimited repeater capability. For range they will kick the shit out of everybody.
9 20 _modem.htm
http://www.microhardcorp.com/products_enclosed_
Use 802.11 or wired networking within each greenhouse with bridges between.
The bridges can be a variety of technologies depending on the needs and setup. Visible light / infrared / laser repeaters are pretty good for line of sight apps but have problems in extremely severe weather.
The cantennas are a good choice. From all accounts homemade can be as good as commercial easily, if you build them with precision. Just use wired to 802.11 bridges, set each bridge to a different channel. If you use wireless inside the greenhouses, that whole network is on one channel with the same SSID. That way any mobile devices have only one network configuration to worry about.
for your transmitters I would highly recommend a commercial two antenna router for any greenhouse that can transmit to two different locations; I'm assuming the greenhouses aren't all in a line but spread apart across a property, in which case you want a tree-style hierarchy. The fewer transmission points the more reliable the whole network...
Total you're talking about three to four thousand in equipment, and that's if you buy consumer grade wireless equipment and make your own cantennas. For receiving the network traffic from another greenhouse there are wireless ethernet bridges available for about $80. I believe Linksys makes one specifically for gaming consoles, that has an antenna input. Not sure if it can do WEP or not. A slightly more attractive option is diskless Linux routers with wireless receivers. Customize a LiveCD, give each one an IDE-Flash adapter and use a small Flash card for configuration information. Use Mini-ITX boards with DC-DC power supplies if you do it... those can be made totally fanless and somewhat ruggedized for the condition they're in. I'm not sure if greenhouses are this way, but I know a lot of industrial facilities have 12V DC power as well as line power, so you might even be able to save on the AC-DC bricks to convert 120V down.
You can build a diskless fanless headless Mini-ITX computer for $200 - $250. The advantage is if you want to run a VPN or something like that and completely not have to worry about wireless security, it's possible with these devices. And in the future with some minor instrumentation purchases, each device can monitor temperature, humidity, whatever might be important throughout the greenhouses and report to a monitoring application...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Buy wrt54g's as the AP (or AP's if you need to hop more than once). Put new firmware on it, crank it a bit if needed.
1 &p roducts_id=41
Use wet11's as a bridge, I've gone 2 miles with an 8dbi patch.
If you want to spend a little more, get more, this is kind of cool, link below, but you'd need antennas too, but it seems like if you're a geek, something like this is what you are after. Building them yourself would certainly be cheaper.
Features:
* Runs Linux
* Tunable in 50mW increments upto 250mW
* WDS (Wireless Distribution Support)
* 64/128-bit WEP Data Encryption, WPA-RADIUS, WPA with TKIP
* Supports NAT and DNS Relay
* DHCP Client/Server support, MAC Address filtering, Hide SSID
* Web-based management
* N Female RF connector
http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=3
Draw it out, use 1 ap and several bridges... if you wind up having to hop once or twice just change channels.
Where do you live? There are lots of the 24dbi antennae on roofs around here (Oklahoma) left over from a wireless cable company bankruptcy. I think the price is probably free if you don't mind crawling on a roof to go after them. I doubt that the bankruptcy lawyers will fight you for them. They probably don't know they exist or if they know, don't care. I understand they may need some minor tuning to work with 802.11b. kk
Most Access Points put out a measly 15mW. Some will get you 35mW. What you need is a decent antenna combined with a more powerful radio card.
http://estore.itmm.ca/ has many models of 200mW access points.
One word - 802.16 ...Skittz
I grew up in a greenhouse as my parents own one. For the life of me I cannot imagine why you'd need fairly high speed 'net access across buildings, unless you have offices that are scattered about the property. Not sure why somebody would do that though.
:)
... and all that fits nicely over even a 9600 baud serial connection.
I also can't figure out why you'd have a 1000' foot gap between buildings... unless you're mostly doing nursery. If that's the case then all the chaps saying to go wired would probably re-think their stance. You don't want to bury wire in a field that's getting replanted with nursery on a regular basis. Of course, you've already got phone lines down there, so, like the title says: I'm missing something.
Something that I haven't seen addressed are the CONDITIONS that this equipment will have to operate and survive in. At best you're dealing with very humid. Depending on the setup you might also be dealing with very hot. When the stock is gone and its summer time a greenhouse gets HOT around here -- 110 degrees or so on some days. I think I've seen 120 once or twice while in there. Dust gets everywhere if you're using any sort of automated filling or soil mixing system which given your size I'd imagine you are. Although then again I go back to the "mostly nursery" idea and it changes.
For the non-greenhouse geeks in the house nursery (perennial plants) are typically grown in regular black-dirt top soil. The kind of dirt you'd find in your yard. Potted annual plants are grown in a mixture that largely consists of peat moss and that stuff flies FOREVER when its dry, which it is during mixing or filling of containers.
So.. 90% humidity, 75 degrees, dust flying everywhere... will a LinkSys WAP with an external antenae hold up to that? Don't ask me, I'm just a "farm boy"
I'm still VERY curious as to why you need/want more throughput then you already have. I'm not saying your crazy or anything, I'm just really wondering what I've missed in greenhouse technology. Seems to me if you're doing any sort of data collection with a roaming handheld you could just want until you cradled the device for a data download. I can't imagine anything that would need to be real time except for outside temp, a number of inside temp monitors, outside wind, sun conditions, etc.
From what I've heard, the best policy is to stick to lower-gain omnis for local base stations and use dishes for any long range links.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Bring a ladder to the nearest college campus and tell them your doing repairs.
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Those antennas do work pretty well, but I suggest keeping their return policy in mind. Or rather, their don't return policy. HyperLink doesn't accept returns except for exchanges on defective equipment. Maybe they changed their policy, but read it first.
You are stuck if you order the wrong one. I nearly got burned buying from them. I never did get the lightning arrestors to work properly, they just degraded range and signal quality unacceptably for reasons I can't figure out.
Just grab a handful of Linksys WRT54G's and buy a copy of Sveasoft's firmware which adds WDS support. You can also boost the output power to 251mw. $75 per router, $20 for support from Sveasoft, and you're set. You'll need to work out weatherproofing and power though. weather proof wrt54g
"Most" wireless cards are actually in the 17+ dbm range.
I'm a little late into this thread - but for whatever it's worth - using 30-100 foot receiving dishes, we are able to sync on pretty well any satellite signal (B/QPSK/QAM/TDMA etc) just so long as it's around 5 db above the noise floor. You get lucky sometimes, get good captures from way outside the intended beam coverage. (36000 kilometers away, most of the satellites are transmitting no more than about 15 to 30 watts)
WiFi uses the same modulation techniques, though the circuitry is not at the same level as a radyne, comstream, SDM or whatever. I wasn't aware they were limited to 1 watt, that's pretty crappy when in 'farmer' mode.
At 2 GHz - I'd imagine 1000' line of site would work no problem at all, unless it's raining or you're shrouded in heavy fog, have a red barn with white stripes in the way... etc.
A lot of those wireless cable antenna are actually in the 2.5ghz range.
Still, they will work just fine, with some gain loss...
Here is a smaller article on the matter... to adapt one. (kinda helpful if you really really don't know what you are doing)
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/page04.html
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Have used the HyperLink antennas for a 9km link. They are great. You will not need any parabolic antennas for distances under a few kilometers.
Cantennas are a complete waste. You are better off with just about anything else. (Try a paperclip)
1km and basic 8.5dB antennas:
Just do the link budget in excel like this:
Output power: 15dBm
Connector loss: -0.5dB
2m RG-58 cable: -2.0dB (Forumla below)
Antenna TX: 8.5dB
1km air: -91.0dB (Formula below)
Antenna RX: 8.5dB
2m RG-58: -2.0dB
Required input: -66.0dBm (For full rate)
MARGIN: 2.5dB
Cablel loss@2.5GHz(dB/m): RG8, LMR400:0.22,RG-58:1.01, RG-174: 2.02
Loss in air(dB) as a function of distance (m): L(s)=-83-20*LOG10(s/400)
Note that the included antennas (1dB) gives 400m at full rate. Also note that two parabolics (24dB) gives full rate at 60km! Put more margin in if you want full rate in rain and snow.
A 180 degree section antenna can give up to 14dB. Coupled with 8.5dB "smoke detector" antennas ($10), you get good coverage over a few square km's
Well it's alright to over build the antenna.
You are not going to get the full 15dbm to the atenna. There will be some loss and having a little head room isn't a bad idea.
That being said... it's a farm... no one is going to complain to the FCC.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Have used the HyperLink antennas for a 9km link. They are great. You will not need any parabolic antennas for distances under a few kilometers.
Cantennas are a complete waste. You are better off with just about anything else. (Try a paperclip)
1km and basic 8.5dB antennas:
Just do the link budget in a spreadsheet like this:
Output power: 15dBm
Connector loss: -0.5dB
2m RG-58 cable: -2.0dB (Forumla below)
Antenna TX: 8.5dB
1km air: -91.0dB (Formula below)
Antenna RX: 8.5dB
2m RG-58: -2.0dB
Required input: -66.0dBm (For full rate)
MARGIN: 2.5dB
Cablel loss@2.5GHz(dB/m): RG8, LMR400:0.22,RG-58:1.01, RG-174: 2.02
Loss in air(dB) as a function of distance (m): L(s)=-83-20*LOG10(s/400)
Note that the included antennas (1dB) gives 400m at full rate. Also note that two parabolics (24dB) gives full rate at 60km! Put more margin in if you want full rate in rain and snow.
A 180 degree section antenna can give up to 14dB. Coupled with 8.5dB "smoke detector" antennas ($10), you get good coverage over a few square km's
A friend pointed the site out to me about a week before it hit slashdot, so by the time the original story broke here, I had built one.
Long story short. They work really well. I've pwned every wireless access point within a 3Km radius of my house. Free Internet anyone? :-)
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
If you really want distance, get an antenna with a very small beam width.
I have two WiFi antennas. A homemade cantenna I built using these instructions. I've experimented with adding a funnel with limited success.
I get pretty good distance with it (big improvement over standard Omni that came with my D-Link 802.11b card, but nothing like what I get using my parabolic grid antenna. It's about $50 after shipping, but the 15 degree beam width is worth it over the 35-50 degree beam width you'll get out of a home made antenna.
I strongly advise against home made pringles can's. They are nothing compared to a simple wave guide, and cost a lot more. Sure they work, but not as well. I'm not sure about that more professional pringles can you posted in your question...
I left a '1' out of the subject line. My 13in chinese cooking scoop cost me in the order of AUD$15.00.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
EVDO... contact Verizon Wireless.
Linksys Access Points are based on linux and they opened up the firmware under the GPL. Several groups have released modified firmware, Sveasoft is just one of them.
I have 2 linksys WRT54G access points in my house. Only one of them is plugged in to the cable modem. The other connects back wirelessly over WDS. I can connect to the internet from either of them.
One of the best things things is that they allow you to crank up the transmit power.
If I were you, I'd get a few of these things...get a couple of high gain antennas and set up a WDS network. Completely wirelessly...
Consider these. It's a cheap DIY method to make a ~15 dB gain dish, with Line of Sight for between 3 and 5 kilometers (1.8 to 3 miles). They aren't particularaly prone to wind and such, but may not last too well out in the weather.
You don't say what kind of data he's passing around. Is he actually connecting PCs together, or is this like temperature & humidity data?
For the former, you're on the righ track. For the latter, there are any number of potential solutions that can't be decided on without more information.
The folks working on the project below are super and what they're doing might fit the bill well for you. Given that the greenhouses are pretty much all the same height, presumably, they'd be well-suited for high gain omnis. And if the site is fairly large, a mesh might well be the best configuration since each hop between repeaters in a regular WiFi network would involve a roughly 50% loss in bandwidth as I recall.
***PLEASE FORWARD***
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 1, 2005
PRESS CONTACT:
Sascha Meinrath
(217)278-3933
sascha@cuwireless.net
CUWiN Website: http://www.cuwireless.net
CUWiN ANNOUNCES PUBLIC RELEASE OF FREE OPEN SOURCE WIRELESS NETWORKING SOFTWARE:
Imagine a free wireless networking system that any municipality, company, or group of neighbors could easily set up themselves. Over the past half-decade, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has been developing an open source, turnkey wireless networking solution that exceeds the functionality of many proprietary systems. CUWiN's vision is ubiquitous, extremely high-speed, low-cost networking for every community and constituency. Following in the footsteps of Linux and Firefox, CUWiN has focused on creating a low-cost, non-proprietary, user-friendly system. CUWiN's software will share connectivity across the network, allowing users to buy bandwidth in bulk and benefit from the cost savings. CUWiN networks are self-configuring and self-healing -- so adding new wireless nodes is hassle-free, and the system automatically adapts to the loss of an existing node. And, because CUWiN networks are completely ad-hoc, there's no need for expensive central servers or specialized administration equipment.
To set up a network, all end-users need to do is burn a CD with CUWiN's software (which will be available for free at http://www.cuwireless.net), put the CD into an old desktop computer equipped with a supported wireless card, and turn the computer on. Once the computer boots from the CD, the rest of the setup is completely automated: from loading the networking operating system and software, sending out beacons to nearby nodes, negotiating network connectivity, and assimilating into the network -- all the complicated technical setup is taken care of automatically. Unlike most broadband systems, CUWiN's software builds a local intranet as well as providing for Internet-connectivity -- thus, a town that uses CUWiN's system is also creating a community-wide local area network over which streaming audio and video, voice services, etc. can all be sent.
CUWiN is a cutting edge research and development initiative. CUWiN has pioneered the first open source implementation of Hazy Sighted Link State routing protocol (first developed by BBN Technologies); thus CUWiN's software creates a highly robust, scalable ad-hoc wireless networks. CUWiN's route prioritization metric is based on research conducted at MIT and will automatically adapt to any network topology and local geography.
CUWiN's software is, and always will be, available for free. CUWiN is a non-profit organization supported by grants and donations. CUWiN's software provides one of the world's most advanced networking solutions available today; and we are now making our software available to the general public to use, test, and help develop. We know that there are features and improvements that people will want to see in future releases -- as an open source project, we are counting on the feedback and input from people around the globe.
More information on setting up your own CUWiN network is available online now at: http://www.cuwireless.net/documentation
The latest version (0.5.5) of the CUWiN software will be available for public download by the end of the week at: http://www.cuwireless.net/downloads
A brief article on the background, history, and ethos of the CUWiN project is available at: www.comtechreview.org/article.php?article_id=259
***
Ab
Claimed here
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Primestar/Prime star.html
I think for about $10,000 you can get a Vivato VP2210 (the outdoor edition).Check out the specs!
a l.pdf
Data Range
54Mbps 642m
48Mbps 976m
36Mbps 1,646m
24Mbps 2,254m
18Mbps 3,085m
12Mbps 4,223m
11Mbps 4,223m
9Mbps 4,689m
6Mps 5,206m
5.5Mbps 5,780m
2Mbps 6,418m
1Mbps 7,126m
It may be a bit too much don't you think?
http://www.vivato.net/download/VP2210_Fin
You could get a mesh network up and running without too much cost. If you invest on 3-4 Linksys WRT54(g) devices and run something like http://www.olsr.org/ on them, then you have a running mesh network.
I presently have a wireless link spanning five and a half miles between two sites. We've got pretty good line-of-site, with only the tops of a few trees, and two highway overpasses sticking up into the fresnel zone, but it works mostly well 99% of the time except when the weather is really bad. At one end, there is a Linksys WET11 connected to a 24 dBi parabolic grid antenna on a 30' pole. The other end has a 12dBi omni antenna on a short pole above a rooftop connected to an old WAP11 access point.
Visit Fleeman Anderson and Bird's website for some good deals on wireless networking antennas, cables, etc. If you put your wireless radio device in a weatherproof box up on the antenna so that you can keep the jumper coax as short as possible, you'll be able to cover long distances with better signal strength and quality. Just run your power up the unused ethernet strands. Only use 4 strands of the ethernet for 10BaseT operation.
I would recommend that you purchase a BOOK.
Wireless LAN's End to End
and
Wireless Networks The Definitive Guide
are both excellent books that clearly explain the issues involved with DESIGNING a wireless network.
A +24dbi parabolic dish is more than innappropriate for what you are doing, so is running firmware hacks to "Pump Up Your Power".
It's not about how much signal you can irradiate the land with, it's about placement and antennae with the correct signal pattern.
Ok, a dish is a high-gain antenna. Is it because the antenna magically produces energy from nothing and amplifies the signal? No.
:)
Gain comes at a price.
The only way an antenna can produce gain, is, by limiting the directions in which it is effective.
A longer dipole (vertically mounted) becomes less effective in the vertical range - which means a long dipole that is perfectly vertical will not really transmit a lot of the energy upwards (and will therefore suck for satellite communication - which you don't care about, but which explains why vertically mounted high-gain dipoles are not used for satellite communication
A dish becomes even more effective by limiting its effectiveness in all other directions than "straight ahead". The better the dish, the narrower "straight ahead" becomes, and the higher the gain therefore becomes "straight ahead".
But you want signal over a large horizontal area, as I understand it. Yet people suggest dishes...
So, unless you want motorized dishes (either remotely controlled which would be a real pain for the user which would need to carry a remote control and continuously reposition the base station dish towards his location, or automatically homing on thermal activity or whatever - totally undoable on the budget you seem to have) on your base stations, don't consider dish antennas. They will be very efficient in a very limited direction, and ineffective everywhere else.
High gain dipoles might work for you, though.
Please, whatever you do, before endeavoring into alternative antenna configurations, make sure you understand what the implications of a given antenna design are (something a slashdotter or two seem to have momentarily forgotten, judging by the comments in this thread).
Does anyone know it it is actually legal? I checked the paperwork for my Airport Extreme and it clearly states that the license for use in many european countries is excluding outdoors use..
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
Try what we did http://ntcomm305.bsunt.net/lstokes/Antenna.ppt
It ended up doing pretty well with LOS and cost $45 with tripod!
I would suggest to stop thinking of wirless if you have the option to use copper.
.
Wireless means maintainance. Yes, no matter how good equipment you use, you _will_ have to look after them. since most of the equipments have to be installed outdoors, there performance depends on weather. One drop of water on your wireless connectors...and kaput..your connection goes down !
go out and buy yourself an SDSL multiplexor, or just plain SDLS modems and start hooking your machines.
Once hooked, you will never have to look after them. they are rock solid !
I am from India, from a place where it rains almost everyday ( bad weather, i know ! ), but my SDSL modems work flawlessly !
If you dont have the money to buy a multiplexor, buy some cheap SDSL modems ( alos known as LAN extendors ).
Wirless is good, but dsl is better, when you have the option of using copper cables
It gives a much larger range but a much lower bandwidth. Depending on your requirements it may match better, controlling and monitoring hardware does not require a huge amount of bandwidth.
Unless the antenna has an actual amplifier on it, it does not increase the power output of the transmitter. It simply alters the radiation pattern, instead of spreading the signal out in a sphere, it concentrates it into something closer to a cone.
For more information see (for example) this site or any HAM radio site.
I would say buy a lot of wire and tin foil...
www.star-os.com and a Wrap board. One kick butt OS that can do just about anything you want.
Is it just going to be for surfing the web, checking email, etc. while travelling around your property? Do you plan on having cameras set up at different sites, or other monitoring gear that needs a lot of bandwidth?
Without knowing the intended use of this network, the uptime requirements (obviously cheap and simple are hints), it is a shotgun approach to network design.
Where do you figure 2.5Ghz from? 2.4Ghz, 900, or 5.8 is what most outdoor wireless runs on.
Build your own Pringle Can network: Stuff about it here
He's talking about the frequency the "wireless cable" ran on. Around here that was in the 2.3GHz range (with the highest channel just nudging 2400 MHz) So no troubled modding and using in ISM band. (FWIW that company is now fully satellite and apparently the MDS channels have been bought by another company but still no ultilisation)
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
I wasn't aware they were limited to 1 watt, that's pretty crappy when in 'farmer' mode.
But in the US the more directional the antennas are, the more effective power you are allowed to use. With a 6dBi antenna the effective power allowed is 4 Watts (36dB). With a 24dBi antenna, must reduce that 30dBm by 6dBm (18 is the difference, divide by 3), meaning system power of (24+24) 48dB which is way higher amout of effective power. That's my reading of the laws anyway, IANAL.
Here in Australia the limit is 4W EIRP (effective ionisation radiated power) for the 2.4GHz range [and 1W for 5.8GHz], so with a 36dBi antenna the radio limit is 0dBm (1mW). With propper alignment, however, this can go several tens of kilometres.
My own wireless network has links of up to over 4km, and fog does affect it, but not enough to completely drop out. We are using modified MDS antennas, and also a few slotted waveguides. 1000 foot is ~300m so these links are far longer than what is being attempted here.
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
I would recommend Apple's Airport Express or Airport Extreme base stations. This of course means you will need some power occasionally, but you won't have to have any other wires, as the Airports effectively mesh together.
You could use any other wireless repeater, but I really like the Airport line.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
...I recently finished a lengthy project with a friend of mine involving various scatter plots of homebrew antennae. The one that worked best, and all the way up to a staggering 1450 feet was something called a Yagi-Antenna. Our homemade cantenna worked well, but squeezed just barely a quarter mile out of it. The Bi-Quad we built and tested was impressive for its "shotgun" broadcast ability. The Bi-Quad was accessible by almost every angle and works great as a receiver. If you're going to transmit, use a Yagi, but don't stand in front of it... I think I might be sterile now.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Designate a channel for WLAN coverage and another for backhaul. You'll need two APs per building, one for WLAN and one for backhaul. Connect your backhauls using narrow sector antennas. Crossover out of the backhaul AP into the WLAN AP. Cable length can be up 100 meters of CAT 5. Put omni antennas on the WLAN AP. Almost forgot, make sure your backhaul APs work in client or bridging mode.
The way this works is the PCs in the building talk to the WLAN AP. It forwards across the cable to the backhaul AP, which then forwards it on through the backhaul network.
And if you're worried about range, stick with the b protocol rather than using g.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
Call up your credit card company... "i would like to deny authorization for this charge"
the credit card company will if you are trying to return a product.
they just withhold money from the next deposit for that company.
Well it's alright to over build the antenna.
Bad advice. Antennas don't magically amplify the signal strength. Antennas focus the power from the transmitter. An omni antenna has a donut shaped pattern. A sector (or panel) will cover a 60-180 degree portion of that donut. And a directional, like the one recommended, is a point to point antenna. In other words, it has to be pointed directly at the receiving antenna. When they are installed they have to be aligned. If the wind catches them, or anyone on this working farm bumps them, they will have to be re-aligned.
1000' isn't really that far. Some manufacturers of 200mW radio actually rate their equipment for that range outdoors with omnis. So it would be reasonable to expect a consumer AP with a 90 or 120 sector to provide good service. Without having to worry about alignment problems later.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
Hehe I can see it now, if you thought broadband over power was bad, just wait till you see how many people scream about doing broadband over barbed wire. ^_^
I'm using Ricochet modems for this exact purpose. They'll go 2000 feet on the stock antennae without any special positioning.
A minor tweak to XP's modem inf files fixes an initialization bug (not the modem's fault), and dialup server happily accepts calls on the wireless modem. I can remain VNC'd into my desktop from the corner gas station...
Here are a few links that I found while googling around. They should be of some help.
Quite a few Wireless Network Links
Long Distance Wireless Network Project
Wireless Network Security Article
Forum discussion concerning long range wireless routers
Yup, I had come up with words that mean the same as brainlessly as soon as I read the price.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I have a wired network on one side of the street with broadband.
Across the street I have a workshop. I would like it to have internet connectivity. (500' at the most).
Buring a cable underneath the street is not an option. (would have to get the county to cut the road, the other option would be to rent a streetsaw, and ninja cut it, bury it and patch it by morning....highly illegal and not an option).
Therefore my only option is wireless.
I'm not exactly sure what I need to do. Whether I need to have two routers. (1 on each side of the street.) 1 router (at my broadband location), and a PCI wireless card (at the location across the street).
Secondly. I have no idea what the range on these things is. Are we talking a few hundred feet? 50'?
Third. Will a PCI wireless card be able to have an extension cable? (e.g. can I run a cable from the card to a cantenna on a pole outside one location and point it at the location across the street and get a good signal? or do I need to have two cantennas?)
I'm an old hand at wired networks, but this wireless thing is all smoke and mirrors for me. I understand how it works, I just don't know what will work in my case.
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
Well duh...
I have 3 years+ with some antenna installs in much worse conditions then a green house.
So far, only one has slipped because the supplied mounting brackets were fairly piss poor.
But in the end, we don't know his topographical layout. That's the real problem here.
The reference to over building the antenna was merely to compensate for line loss (depending on his run length and the quality of cable used)
In any event, the only thing to do in this situation is provide as much information as possible and hope he gets the idea.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra