Active Repeater in the mountains

I've climbed mountains, pulled elevation plots, dug 200+ feet of trench, run power and cable, employed step-up and step-down tranformers, bought and built antennas, erected tripods/towers, and more, all in a quest for high-speed Internet at my home, in the mountains, on a shoestring budget.

Yet, here I am struggling with the part of the project that I expected to be the easiest. I am trying to figure out how to configure my four existing pieces of equipment to pass a signal over 2 miles in a "point-to-point-to-point" network (two point-to-points, or a point-to-point with an active repeater in the middle, however you look at it).

I have these 4 pieces of equipment:

  1. ActionTec combo DSL Modem & Wireless AP
  2. LinkSys WET11 v1
  3. LinkSys BEFW11S4 v4
  4. Cheap CompUSA wireless/4port router

Here's the configuration:

  1. Internet...

  1. ActionTec combo DSL modem/wireless AP ... located at home of my nearest neighbor

(((... wirelessly beamed 1.8 miles to... )))

  1. WET11 v1 on a mountain peak

---- connected via ethernet cable, back-to-back, to ----

  1. BEFW11S4 v4 on same mountain peak

(((... wirelessly beamed 0.33 miles to... )))

  1. CompUSA router... in my home

---- ...connected via ethernet cables to... ----

  1. Multiple PCs in my home.

So, #3 & #4 above are meant to be the wireless repeater on the mtn peak. Each of these four pieces of equipment is attached to its own parabolic or sector antenna. I've managed to pick up signals from the various pieces independently (2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5), but not all together yet.

What I'm struggling to figure out is:

  1. Which of these four pieces should be set up to act as the AP?

  1. Can #3 and #4 be connected back-to-back to form an active repeater? (I'm hoping to avoid the issue of throughput being cut in half by using two radios)

  2. Can multiple boxes be configured as access points? (Doesn't the CompUSA router need to be an AP in order to service the PCs in my home? Meanwhile, doesn't one of the two devices on the peak need to be an AP in order to act as a repeater?) If so, how?

Thanks in advance.

Reply to
getwilde
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On 13 Nov 2006 13:51:41 -0800, "getwilde" wrote in :

#2 and #4

Yes. Use different channels.

Yes.

No, and that's your problem -- you need a wireless Ethernet client (like the WET11) in your home.

Configure the BEFW11S4 as an AP as described in the How To wiki below.

Reply to
John Navas

Do I enable DHCP, NAT, etc on only one? If so, which one? Or do I go with static IP addresses? Any more detail would be helpful.

Okay, makes sense. I understand the reason for different channels. Another website suggested channel 1 and channel 11 to eliminate any interference. In my case, these two antennas will be offset by ~60 degrees and will likely get signals from both ends of the link (through sidelobes, etc).

Okay. I think I understand what you're saying. Are you suggesting the following? (Note the second WET11, in my home, #5)

  1. Internet...

  1. ActionTec combo DSL modem/wireless AP (configured as AP) ... located at home of my nearest neighbor

(((... wirelessly beamed 1.8 miles to... )))

  1. WET11 v1 on a mountain peak

---- connected via ethernet cable, back-to-back, to ----

  1. BEFW11S4 v4 on same mountain peak

(((... wirelessly beamed 0.33 miles to... )))

  1. WET11 ... in my home

---- connected via ethernet cable, to ----

  1. CompUSA router... in my home

---- ...connected wirelessly or via ethernet cables to... ----

  1. Multiple PCs in my home.

Thanks for the links. I just skimmed through the How-To, but will need to re-read in more detail tonight.

Reply to
getwilde

On 13 Nov 2006 14:58:51 -0800, "getwilde" wrote in :

Given only a single WAN external IP address, #2 should actually be a wireless router with DHCP and NAT, to service both you and the neighbor. Unfortunately, you'll then both be on the same LAN. Would be better to have two external IPs, one for each of you, or, failing that, separate isolated subnets, although that takes either more hardware or more expensive hardware.

1, 6, and 11 are the channels with the least interference from overlap.

Still best to use different non-overlapping channels.

Configured as wireless router with DHCP and NAT as noted above.

Access point, not router, or you'll have double NAT. See How To below for using a wireless router as a wireless access point.

Yep.

Reply to
John Navas

The mountains where? I used skynet of spokane in northern idaho.. Apparently they are also in many many other places.. See the map at

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Reply to
Peter Pan

In the Rockies of Northern Utah. Thanks for the tip on this WISP. I called nearly a dozen WISPs in this area, and none of them service my area. We're deep in a canyon, so this homebrew solution was the best I'm able to come up with. (Also looked at satellite, but latency is way too high to do VoIP, gaming, etc.)

Reply to
getwilde

Whoops. I didn't mean to imply that we're sharing the connection. I've actually managed to convince Qwest to install a second NI, and the owner of the property has been very cooperative. This will be my own dedicated DSL connection. : )

D'oh, thanks.

I'll play with all of this tonight and try to document what I do, so that others with similar arrangements might benefit.

Reply to
getwilde

The way I found out who was in the area was talk to the people at the local high school.. Seems most have internet for the students.. They told me about one they used privately, that the public part was in beta, and I was able to glom onto it before it went public...

One of the locals built a solar power repeater (actually two, one was for cell service in his valley, another for wifi)

Solar Powered WiFi Repeater. Popular Science just published an article ... Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Solar Powered WiFi Repeater: Check out

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Reply to
Peter Pan

So now I've read a bunch more about how to configure all of these boxes. (Almost entirely from John Navas' Wiki. Thank you John.) And I've been looking for a good deal on another WET11 (or a WRT54G that I can convert to a wireless bridge with 3rd party firmware).

But it has me thinking. Is this the best way to go? So far, we've identifed 5 seperate devices to get this working. (Sure seems like a lot!) It's probably "best" in the sense that I already own 4 of the 5 devices, and am working with a tight budget.

But is this the *most common* setup for something like this? Suppose I were willing to buy other equipment (likely off-the-shelf, used equipment), and wanted to continue with a double-radio setup at the repeater site, what would another -- perhaps more conventional -- setup look like?

Thanks

Reply to
getwilde

On 15 Nov 2006 13:06:56 -0800, "getwilde" wrote in :

For what you are trying to do, these 5 boxes are the conventional, most common, most correct setup.

+--------+ +--------+ | Wi-Fi +--+ Wi-Fi | .....+ Bridge | | AP +.... : +--------+ +--------+ : : : : : : : +-----------+----+ +---+----+ +--------+ | DSL : Wi-Fi | | Wi-Fi +--+ Wi-Fi | | Modem : AP | | Bridge | | Router +... +----------------+ +--------+ +--------+

But for the distance, which will require directional high-gain antennas, you could use WDS repeater mode, thereby replacing each pair of devices with a single device.

Reply to
John Navas

Well, that's fortunate. Prior to posting here, I'd searched for hours, but never got a complete answer. Just kind of pieced together what I could. (And missed a few parts, but you set me straight.) Thank you again for the helpful information.

Yup, I've managed to collect a couple of Primestar dishes and have built bi-quad feeds for each dish, based on designs I found online. So, I have ~28dbi antennas on each end of the 1.8 mile link (which would be overkill for that relatively short distance, except that I don't have perfect line-of-sight and need the additional signal strength.) And I have simple stand-alone bi-quads (~12 dbi) for each end of the .3 mile link.

In addition, the WET11 that I plan to place on the peak is a Ver1, and I've replaced the stock PCMCIA card with a spare Senao NL-2511CD+EXT2 card (again based on instructions I found online.) This further boosts my transfer strength and receive sensitivity across that 1.8 miles between the Modem+AP and the peak.

I've been hoping to avoid WDS repeaters if possible. My understanding is that throughput is halved with each WDS repeater used, because it uses a single radio to transmit and receive, and radios can't do both at the same time. So, since I already have the gear, I'll go with the "Bridge back-to-back with AP" that you suggest above. (If it's useful to anyone else, an alternative which I've heard works excellent for a repeater site is RouterBoard RB112 with two miniPCI radios in it. Approx $200 solution which is probably more reliable than these off-the-shelf devices that I'm going to try to use. If these don't work, that's probably my next purchase. :)

I imagine that even with the additional boxes (radios) and associated overhead, I should get better response times and transfer speeds than I would if I were to employ WDS. At least, I hope so.

Reply to
getwilde

On 15 Nov 2006 15:09:22 -0800, "getwilde" wrote in :

Because all traffic is doubled by a repeater, and because only one radio (in any/all devices) can transmit at a time, network throughput is halved by each repeater.

You undoubtedly will.

Reply to
John Navas

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