Help setting up 2 outdoor APs that have a range of about 1mile

Yep. Figure that it cuts your maximum speed in half on each hop after the first WDS router. For example, if your 3ea WDS repeaters each connected at 24Mbits/sec wireless speed, the maximum thruput would be about 12Mbits/sec. You have 2 extra hops so your maximum speed is: 12 / 2 / 2 = 3Mbits/sec. It will probably be somewhat less than that due to collisions, interference, and timing issues. Not very good.

Radius? Can't you build a spoke and hub setup where everyone connects to a central access point? 1 mile isn't difficult if you have line of sight and big dish antenna.

The hangar will cause problems due to reflections and multipath. 200ft "end to end" seems to imply 100ft radius. Is that correct? If so, this should be easy with a single central access point. Why so mnay repeaters?

Cameras can be bandwidth hogs depending on how they are setup. If you're using a demand real-time feed (i.e. send JPG's as fast as the pipe will handle), you'll use up ALL your available bandwidth.

Yep. That's roughly what I would do. However, lose the amplifier. Those things only belch more signal than they can receive. You end up with an alligator (big mouth, small ears) which only generates interference. Put you effort into proper antennas. Put the WRT54G very close to the antenna. If the terrain is flat, and you have line of sight to everywhere, you can probably get away with an omnidirectional antenna on the WRT54G. For the hangar and trailer, some kind of dish or panel with as much gain as you can afford.

Thanks for the quick reply. About the distances, when I said 200 ft is taking from one end to the other, we only have one internet outlet and is at one of the ends of the diagrams I did. Now which antennas would you recommend for such setup, I dont understand too well the whole deal with the antennas.

Now that I think of, there might be an issue. I'll try to draw it the best I can.

There is the drawing with the current setup, the signal strength is good all the time anywhere in the drawing. There is one thing though sometimes we have trucks and trailers in the middle and that affects the connection. Would also the antenna allow a better reception?

For the mobile setup that might be the case where we can assume it has to be a 1 mile radius, becuase the convoy is not always setup in the same order of trucks.

Also can I limit both setups to just one router and one antenna? Maybe one amplifier if needed?

Thanks again.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:

That's almost perfect. A fairly high gain antenna pointed in the general direction of the users should be sufficient.

Antennas work by stealing signal from one direction, and sending it another. Kinda like a water nozzle. In your case, an 8dBi panel or patch antenna, at the access point end, will cover the general area, while not sending any signal in the directions where there are no users. The general rule of thumb is that if you can see the antenna, you can talk to it. If you can't see it, it might work, but it won't be reliable. Try everything you can to get line of sight between antennas.

If the antennas are on the roof, you may need to also mount the access point and client radios on the roof. Coax cable losses are substantial and should be avoided.

Making the right angle turn into the doorway of the hangar is going to be a problem. RF does not like to go through metal walls. Are there any windows that face the probable location of the access point that an antenna in the hangar can be located?

Trucks and trailers are either reflectors or obstructions to RF. Both a determintal and should be avoided. If you want reliable operation, try to get the antennas and radios up high where thing moving on the ground will have little effect. At 200ft, you don't need a big tower or elaborate mounting. Just a pipe at the roof peak with a view of the connecting client radios, which might also be roof mounted. Doing everything at ground level is certain to be a problem.

This is really a seperate issue and should be a seperate posting.

It is possible to distribute wireless from a moving truck convoy. In general, it's a central access point with a decent antenna. The client radios have some type of directional (small panel) antennas that are aimed at the central access point. The local movie company had a similar system when they were filming locally last week (and caused all kinds of 2.4GHz interference because they were running maximum power). However, these systems were not intended to be used while moving down the road as the directional antennas would not be aligned or stable. Range will also be rather limited. My guess is about 300ft mostly because the other trucks in between present a serious barrier in the Fresnel Zone, obstruction, or reflection. Methinks 1 mile would be impossible.