Best setup for penetrating walls?

klimclik hath wroth:

I don't understand the drawing. Can you label what cables and what signals are going from various points?

No. Anything denser than chicken wire will not pass any RF. Most of it will be reflected. However, if you have a window available, you can put the antenna in the window and it might work.

In order of preference:

- Antennas outside BOTH buildings.

- CAT5 or fiber optic cable buried in the ground.

- If you have a common AC power line, power line networking will work.

- Data over RG-6/u coax cable (various methods).

- If you have phone wiring, HomePNA phone line networking.

- FSO (free space optical). Kinda expensive and requires a window.

Dunno. If you can manage an outside antenna on the steel building, just about any wi-fi device with an external antenna connector will work. I kinda like Buffalo WLI-TX4-G54HP even if they did just cheat me out of a $10 rebate.

The antennas will probably be big and ugly at 350ft plus needing to penetrate an additional wall. The calcs are at:

Same problem at building c2. Unless your c2 wall is made of paper, there's going to be some loss. Find a window on c2.

Didn't we already go over this klim?

In fact, here's the last post in that thread.

klim wrote: > On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:14:25 -0700, dualdflipflop > wrote: >

Are you kidding, this is fun for me too... Playing with 802.11 stuff can be very fun!

I'm lucky, I have a lot of friend/co-workers who are totally into "hacking the planet" as we call it, where wifi plays a big part in. If you have a chance, you might want to look into finding a Computer User Group in your local area. I prefer Linux User Groups (LUG), those tend to be the geekiest of the computer social gatherings. Computer clubs are full of people like me who are more than willing to help... especially if beer is involved!

I'm sure the LNB and the modem have no problem being 30' apart. Most are. The modem and the router is typically kept together seeming how it's easier to do some physical troubleshooting if necessary.

I was under the impression that computer 1 and 2 were together. But that's fine. 25' Cat-6 is shelf bought easily.

Great...

I'll link you to that later.

Well.. here's how I'd do it.

First, I'd figure out a way to grab an early revision of the WRT-54GS (mine is a v1.1). Next I'd go to

they have a spectacular Wiki in there and a great forum as well. The DD-WRT firmware is basically replacing the Linksys firmware with an open source one. In layman's terms, it takes a sixty some-odd dollar router and turns it into a thousand dollar router. There are some really slick wireless trick you can use in there to help you get the best possible configuration.

I'll give you an example. Today, I was doing some range testing on some antennas I built out of cookie cans (4"x7"), placed one on my roof, drove up the hill from where I live, had a simple laptop card with a pigtail antenna adapter hooked up to an identical cookie can antenna on a tripod pointing down to my antenna which I set up to point to the location I was at, and managed to get a decent signal. I calculated the distance on Google Earth to be approximately 1.24 miles. The settings on DD-WRT was simple. I just made the wireless signal transmit and receive on the same antenna jack (right one in this case, since it's soldered on the board) and turned up the power to 100 mW from the default which is around 24 mW I think... Anyhow. As you can see, 1.24 miles is much more than 350'.

Pros of doing it this way: -- You can show off to your buddies your uber wifi hackery skills. -- You have more options in DD-WRT than you do in any other router. -- The range will be well over what you require. -- Giving you total control over your network's potential capability.

Cons of doing it this way: -- Harder to setup, DD-WRT will require some networking knowledge. -- Total overkill, 350' is not all that far even with a wood wall. -- Costs a little more in parts. -- DD-WRT compatible routers are not easy to find.

The most professional way (and off the shelf) of doing this is getting a good router, doesn't really matter if it's a Linksys, just so long as it has at least one antenna jack. Acquire a mast, similar to one you'd find a VHF/UHF television antenna stuck to. Run a cable with the grounding adapter (I'll link you to it later), to a pre-built omni directional antenna with at least 9dBi gain. A directional antenna is almost overkill for 350' and limits mobility. The omni should not be as high as you can go, just something that gives it line of sight, or close.

This really isn't an exact science. It'll be hard to screw it up. I promise.

Mind you, getting a pre-built antenna will yield the same or similar results due to the proximity of your third computer. Just be sure it's weather proof.

This is a first... most people I talk to, don't really care to do the necessary reading and whatnot.

This is a good example of what I was talking about. Just be sure you can adapt your cable to utilize this equipment.

> One other question: > Computer 3 will be inside a wood sided building 350 feet from the roof > antenna. I am thinking of using a USB Wireless G adapter on that > computer (I've read they actually pick up better than internal cards). > What do you think the chances are of picking up a good signal with > that setup.

This is a good question to ask. Depending on whether the computer is a desktop with a free PCI slot which you can open the case and install yourself, or a laptop which you can get a PCMCIA/Cardbus, or either which could use a USB dongle; results may vary.

1) Desktop with a free PCI slot. This requires you understand how to upgrade a component of your computer. If you feel comfortable doing this, this would be my first choice. There is a card called the Netgear WG311T which is an absolutely outstanding card hardware and driver wise, (and supports higher speeds if bought with a 108 "turbo" whatever it's called Netgear router. It's got an SMA-RP connector which makes life easy.

2) Laptops are tricky. Typically they come with an onboard m-PCI card which has a built in antenna which I helped someone just today who wanted to adapt a cable from that (in this newsgroup as well). PCMCI cards with an external jack is hard to come by. Most of which are not

802.11G. This is a poor choice but sometimes necessary.

3) USB dongles are kinda hit or miss in my opinion. First of all, there are some companies like Hawking and Edimax who make USB 802.11G adapters with SMA-RP connectors, and yield decent results. The drivers are stable in Windows, and Mac/Linux machines can run them as well with little mess usually.

Now... I have all three of these situations as you may have guessed. My first choice is clear with the Netgear WG311T PCI card. My other choice if you must go USB would be with the Edimax EW-7318USg (Hawking has an equivalent, which looks identical but white instead of black).

As far as an antenna on this end. If the stock antenna does not work, I would recommend you try a higher gain omni before trying a directional. There are a lot of desktop stationary omni antennas. I wouldn't keep the antenna behind the machine. Raise it as high as you can ascetically, there shouldn't be a need to make an additional reach for that last bit of hight. The base station (router antenna) is more important in this case it seems.

My pleasure. I hope this works out for you in the end. If not, let me know right away so return policies are not voided.

Make sure when you do get any equipment, you do as much common sense experimentation as possible. Try out locations for antennas to see if you can get significant signal gain. Play around.

Hell, I'm just typing way too much helping you answer a question which I could have summed up in a paragraph and done about the same job. But for you, because you seem interested in learning, which I admire, I figure what the hell. Right? Plus, I'm bored... and I'm off work today.

Like I said, this is not an exact science. Your needs are not all that extreme... almost basic enough to the point where you don't have to do all this mounting antenna on roof action and whatnot just to get a signal to propagate to the third computer. But you sound like the kind of person who is somewhat willing to go all out to get the best quality the first time around.