Trying to broadcast wireless signal .5 mi

The device in your parents house, the WAP54G, would have to be configured to operate in client mode. That would require PCs in your parents house to have a WIRED connection to it. There's only one radio. To make the distant connection and also do local wireless would be problematic. There are schemes like WDS that supposedly work. But they can't get around having to cut the wireless bandwidth in half, not to mention the antenna issues. If your folks computers are wired, and the WAP54 supports being used as a client, then you're off to a reasonable start. But if the WAP54 doesn't support being a client then get an access point that does. If they want wireless access then you'll need a second radio anyway.

You'd also do well to consider having a specific access point for them at your house too. That way the wifi you need in your house won't be stuck on the antenna used for the link to theirs. Wifi routers and such are quite cheap these days, using separate devices often saves you a lot of configuration hassles and compromises.

I'd go with

WRT300N----ISP connection (dsl, cable, whatever) | +--local wifi (your SSID) | +--local wired ethernet | +--wifi access point (solely for wifi to parents) | +--backfire antenna (your house)

backfire antenna (at parents) | +--access point (as wifi client to uplink SSID) | +--local wired ethernet | +--access point for local wifi (their own SSID)

This way the uplink stays isolated from your own local wifi traffic. You can tailor that local wifi to however you'd like and not have to juggle with the backfire coverage. Then the access point at their house can be likewise configured to best cover their house, instead of being tied up with the backfire antenna. They can use either a wired connection or local wifi. If they're going with wired only then you can leave off that last access point (or easily add one later).

-Bill Kearney

Thanks Bill for the reply. I thought I had this thing figured out but your post left me confused. LOL

How does the antenna hook to the router? The reason I ask this question is that I presumed you just plugged the antenna into the back of router and it just took up one of the eithernet ports. I also assumed the access point I was going to put down at my parents would have the antenna plugged into it and it would provide a link for my parents to share my network with me.

My parents currently only have one computer and my intention was to give them wireless only (no wired connections.)

In my home right now I have no wired connections. Both the PC and the laptop are used downstairs mostly, and the router is upstairs.

My mom uses the computer mostly to browse the web and on occasion she might would push my wife a file or two through the network if she was capable to.

WRT300N----ISP connection (dsl, cable, whatever) |

+--local wifi (your SSID) | +--wifi access point (solely for wifi to parents) This access point only has one port to plug into. How do you connect the antenna and the router at the same time? | +--backfire antenna (your house)

backfire antenna (at parents) |

+--access point (as wifi client to uplink SSID) | +--access point for local wifi (their own SSID)

Could both of the above access points be combined to in the form of another router with DHCP turned off? I was hoping that my router would handle all og the IP asignments.

Thanks for your help.

Bill Kearney;173047 Wrote:

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Ethernet port? Ah, no. Using an external antenna will require using a router that supports having one attached to it. Some do, some don't. Get ready for the heart attack of what good quality cable will cost you. You either have to use VERY good quality cable, if you're going to run more than a few feet, or put the router as close as possible to the antenna.

There needs to be two radios. One to uplink to your house. Another to provide wireless coverage insider their house. No routers have two radios in them (well, some high-end ones might). Then you factor the cost of cabling. It ends up being a LOT cheaper to put a client router up on the pole and string CAT5 ethernet from it to another router in the house.

Um, you're assuming network and RF use the same port? No.

You could try. But experience shows it'd be easier to put a router at the folks house that handles it's own DHCP. But this is a trivial issue.

I strongly suggest you look into what it takes to get the RF signal from that antenna down to where you want to put the router.

You do have line of sight between the locations, correct? Where are those locations in relation to the current equipment (your network and the parent's computer)? Let's say you're planning on putting the antennas on the outside wall of the houses, and there's a room right inside where you can place the routers. That'd be ideal. You'd be keeping the RF cable from the router to the dish as short as possible, and you'd avoid having to put the routers up on poles and inside weatherproof enclosures. Then you'd run CAT5 Ethernet from them. In your house you'd run the wire from the router to your existing router. In your parents you'd run wire from there to wherever works for a wifi unit. Personally, if they're just using one PC then just hard-wire than one PC directly to the client router.

Wire is cheap. Wire works. Plenty of folks drive themselves crazy trying to cajole wifi into working when running a wire would've been quick, easy and CHEAP. But hey, feel free to learn the hard way...

Using this sort of setup will work the best in the long run.

-Bill Kearney

Saluda Dave wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@no-mx.wirelessforums.org:

The antenna's need to be mounted outside, with coax runs from each to the respective routers. The coax would most likely need to be LMR 400. At the AP, the coax plugs into where the antenna used to, it doesn't plug into an ethernet port.

I did read you have equipment, so I hate to suggest spending more money......but you already need to buy 2 antenna's ($120 from Radio Labs, seems kind of expensive)(and related hardware), and a couple coax runs (with maybe an adapter in there somewhere too).

This would be the ideal place to use a pair of Senao/Engenius EOC-3220 bridges.

(But as set of these would run $300'ish)

They are an all-in-one design, with 400 mw output and integrated 9 dbi patch antenna, and power via POE. This would, *by far*, be the easiest to deploy.

Mount one at your house. POE is power-over-ethernet, meaning that it comes with a small box that the DC adapter plugs into instead of directly to the unit. The only wire run to do is ethernet, no coax. CAT5E cable is dirt cheap as compared to LMR coax. At your existing router you would add a short CAT5 jumper, from an open ETH port to the POE injector, DC power pack (your existing router already uses one so AC should be readily available there) plugs in to the injector, and then another CAT5 run going to wherever you mounted the unit outside. Set this one up as an AP on the same IP subnet.

And at your parents house, same thing. The PC can plug directly into the injector, as it doesn't need to plug into a hub/bridge. Configure this one as a 'Client Bridge' on the same IP subnet as well and you have one big happy network.

Basically, you are saying from a lan port on the wireless router, attach something like ftp://ftp10.dlink.com/images/products/DWL-900AP+/DWL-900AP+.jpg

You could bridge the two wireless routers wit the DWL-900AP+ on each system.

I have this arrangement to connect office to line-of-sight home ~ 400m

Office (mixture of wired and wireless systems)

Wireless ADSL Router/Switch | Ethernet Cable | Linksys WAP54G Wireless Access Point (set to repeater mode) as near as possible (3m) to | Home made cantenna aerial

400m

Home made cantenna aerial and very short cable to | Linksys WAP54G Wireless Access Point (set to repeater mode) | short ethernet cable | D-Link DWL-700AP Wireless Access Point (now a bit out of date) | Home equipment (couple of laptops)

The above arrangement has worked fine for over 3 years thanks to a friendly farmer who keeps his apple tree well trimmed to maintain LOS.

HTH

hmmm - apples and oranges - or, more precisely, Radio waves (round screw on antenna) vs Ethernet (RJ45)

The radio waves (RF) are like walkie-talkies and need a transmitter/receiver along with the antenna. The combo router / access point has these screw on antennas... that is the RF. That is where ANY antenna needs to connect. Also, at these microwave frequencies, the signal strength is really zapped by any length of cable... it's not an Ethernet cable or an AC extension cord. That is why folks try and put a separate WAP up near the dish antenna to minimize any cable runs.

The Ethernet is merely connecting to the cable/DSL modem, and also to any local wired devices...