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Parent-Friendly Wireless Bridge To Span 500 Meters?
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 22, 2008 12:10 PM
from the your-meterage-may-vary dept.
from the your-meterage-may-vary dept.
GonnaBRichYeahYeah! writes "My dad lives down a dirt road 500 meters off the main road. The cable company will not put cable down his lane for any less than the ridiculous sum of $10,000.
And he cannot get phone line DSL since he is so far away from the central terminal, so he relied on painful 22k/sec dial-up for access to the Internet.
He got sick of it and relies on Hughes satellite Internet, at $60/month, but he still has to be connected to a phone line to upload to the Internet. It's not a good solution, but better than dial-up.
His friend lives on the corner of the main drag with his lane and has cable, thus hi-speed Internet.
I suggested that he get a wireless access point, and put it at his friend's house and then get a wireless card for access. The problem is that no wireless routers go that far (max range of -N is 200 feet) and WiMax is too complex for a 70-year old man. Any suggestions from Slashdot crowd would be helpful." Plenty of people make wireless links over longer distances, but often they're not suited for people who want simplicity and reliability. What's the best out there right now?
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Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
Hoe (one per helper)
500 meters of heavy duty conduit
500 meters of cable (recommend that you lay fiber at the same time)
Solution 1:
1a: Dig a long trench from the cable termination point down the dirt road to your father's house
1b: Dig a long trench from "the closest neighbour with cable internet" down the dirt road to your father's hose
Ensure that the trench is at least 18 inches deep, roughly 8 inches wide
2. Lay 500 meters of heavy duty conduit. Ensure that you are threading your cable through the conduit all the way along. Attempting to thread the cable AFTER the counduit has been completed may prove to be problematic.
3a: Call the cable company to connect the cable to the cable termination point. Begin paying monthly subscription to cable internet provider.
3b: If you've chosen to run the connection to your neighbhour's home, ensure that you don't piss him/her off. They are now your cable internet provider.
4. Profit $$$
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget to fill the trench after you've installed the conduit!
Failing to do so, may turn this solution into a bigger problem than simple "internet access"...
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Insightful)
For 500 meters?!?
Christ on a cracker.. rent a ditch witch [ditchwitch.com]!
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were me, I'd probably bring in a contractor to do it.
If you do consider this route, get local utilities to locate underground services for you - so that you don't accidentally dig up power/water. You shouldn't - we're talking a foot and a half, but...
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
And they recommend calling before you do any digging.
Better safe than sorry.
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
Aww yeah.
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Insightful)
One assumption you are all making is that he owns all 500 meters of the land between his place and his friend's place.
If you want to go the wireless route, I've had good luck with the antenna "amplifier" I built from this site. [freeantennas.com]
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
don't people google anymore before asking
Parent
Obligatory Chris Rock Joke Rewrite (Score:5, Funny)
Dad: "Here's twenty bucks, lay 500 meters of conduit to my house, b****!"
Parent
Re:Why not hoes? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Interesting)
I just emailed him, but
I actually did this before. It was with a pair of WAP11's (current at the time), a 24dBi parabolic, and a 19dBi panel. It was 100% reliable, except for a few circumstances.
After a year, a bamboo tree grew up through the line of site.
One end was in an office, and the WAP11 would overheat because the A/C was turned off on the weekends, and the cleaning crew would shut off the fan blowing on the AP.
In one strong wind, I found I hadn't secured the antenna well enough, and it turned.
They were all easy, obvious problems.
In his case, an AP with a high gain antenna on one end, and a decent antenna on the distant end attached to his wireless device would be fine.
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I consulted the charts, and even did the math myself to confirm that the charts were right.
a 20mw transmitter and 24dBi antenna puts it
Now, my 200mw transmitter with the 24dBi antenna is a wee bit against FCC rules in theory, but with loss in the cables, it may just be at the limit.
Since they were very directional antennas, it was a fairly safe bet they'd never notice anyways. Sitting behind either antenna, I could hear the signal (encrypted, of course). Standing on the ground immediately under the antenna, still with a clear view of the remote side, I couldn't detect it, nor anything at that particular frequency. I even did that with the 200mw transmitter and a 4.5dBi antenna. Only being maybe 15 feet or so below the real antenna was enough to be outside of the beam of the more diverse antenna.
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
Cable is considered low voltage, so in some states it does not have to be buried 18 inches. Also why would you dig a trench 8 inches wide? Rent a small trencher, it make about trench about 3-4 inches wide. Use a trench shovel to clear out the trench.
Also, if you are using PVC, if you pull the line through as you are gluing the conduit together, you stand a great chance of gluing your pull string in place. Best thing to do is to shoot a mouse through the pipe (a mouse is a special plug that almost exactly fits a conduit that you attach a very light weight pull string to. On the other end you use a shop-vac to suck it out).
I would also have a pull box installed every 100 meters. 500 meters would be one heck of a pull.
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
nope. spool of string, a soft poofy to tie on then fo string that fits easily in conduit and a wet-dry vac. works great. I suggest pulling a string along with the wire so you can easily re-do it later or add another wire.
BTW: 1500 feet of cat 5 does not work well for ethernet. get a pair of sdsl modems and put one at each end of the wire and you can go for 20 miles.
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Doing it professionally for $10K (Score:5, Informative)
You may want to pay your neighbor for a utilities easement to either run a cable down his property or install point A for fixed-wireless on his property. Then, pay the cable company as normal for them to connect Point A to their hookup. You will also need to get electrical service. The up-front costs won't be cheap but it will be a lot less than $10K.
If there are several neighbors affected, you may want to form a co-op or contract with a company who will own the easement.
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Re:Doing it professionally for $10K (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Funny)
Hoe (one per helper)
The mark of true friendship is helping you lay cable even when you don't hire them prostitutes in return.
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
Howeverm if you lay multimode-fibre then you can get a length of 2km out of it. I have no idea what kind of routers you'd need to make that work, but I guess they'd be expensive.
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
B = cost of equipment (free because you already have it? Power tool rental?)
C = cost of submitting a request to the county
D = cost of cables, conduits, etc that gets buried.
If A + B + C + D $10,000 that the cable company is quoting, then it's a good deal. If it gets a permit and is all done to code there's nothing the cable company can sue about... especially since he'd just basically extended their infrastructure at no cost to them.
There's always inviting a cell tower to be built on your property. In such a case the cell companies would wind up buring some kind of infrastructure anyway to support it. When that happens, call again and all of a sudden, wouldn't you know it, you've got cabling all up to practically your doorstep.
Parent
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833130039 [newegg.com]
Two 19 dBi directional outdoor antennas ($82 each)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833980012 [newegg.com]
Various Cabling:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812146013 [newegg.com]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833164143 [newegg.com]
Two WRT54GL's ($60 each) to be equipped with Linux firmware (recommend DD-WRT)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190 [newegg.com]
I'm sure there will be all sorts of adapters (M to F and TNC to N-type) needed, so plan on making several batches of purchases before you go to the site. Also disable the unused antenna in DD-WRT.
Parent
Proper Antenna (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Proper Antenna (Score:5, Informative)
Ticking along for years. 2 MBPS, faster than T1 speed. And proprietary FHSS, no freeloaders. Heh.
You have to get the antenna up above the fresnel effect and any obstructions at the frequency in use, about 60' for 915 Mhz, more like 30' for 2.4 Ghz. Which is why 2.4 Ghz is easier. I would have no problem running that link at either frequency. It'll work fine.
You can do it. No problems at all.
Give good attention to the antennas, that's what you need to get it to work.
Parent
Such antennas are cheap and small. (Score:5, Informative)
Such antennas are cheap and small, too. Under $100 in singles at a number of companies with online ordering facilities.
A 24db skeleton-parabola can get you miles of range even without a high-gain antenna on the other end, and is about the size of a UHF TV antenna. (I know one guy who war-scans the business district of San Francisco with one - from his apartment deck in Berkeley. B-) ) With antennas on both ends you should be able to go with the little lozenge types.
To give you an idea of range: My Nevada house is about 5 miles from the cell tower where the local WiSP has its POP, with a directional antenna pointed generally my way. His customers normally use a lozenge antenna with built in AP mounted on an outside wall, and I'll probably do that when I sign up (because my computer room is on the far side of the house). But my picture window faces the tower and my laptop catches the ID beacon just fine sitting in my lap using the builtin antenna.
So for a half-mile putting an AP in each attic and even a low-gain external antenna on the roof or outside wall should do the job just fine.
Want a cheap do-it-yourself high-gain directional antenna? Get a big wok strainer (woks and their strainers are pretty good parabolas), put a USB-stick WiFI adapter on a USB extension cord, and mount it with its backside at the focus of the strainer. B-)
Parent
Did he lose his marbles? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Did he lose his marbles? (Score:5, Funny)
[Ducks]
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From Engadget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:From Engadget... (Score:5, Informative)
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Doable with 802.11g (Score:5, Informative)
You can use wireless (Score:5, Informative)
Cantenna? (Score:5, Informative)
They're really cheap to build. You generally need to find reverse-polarity RF connectors to hook to the card in the computer. Digikey.com, newark.com, and mouser.com all sell reverse-polarity rf connectors. Traditionally people put n-type rf connectors on the antenna but that's a pain: I built mine using a bnc bulkhead connector on the can, and a rp-sma-to-bnc converter connector on my wireless adapter card, and just ran bnc cable from one to the other.
Mine only runs 40 meters through a couple of walls. Hopefully other people will correct this if it's the wrong solution for 500 meters.
Hawking external antennas (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=32&FamID=58&ProdID=133 [hawkingtech.com]
ALL wireless routers go that far. (Score:5, Informative)
Wireless access point at each end, directional antennas, wifi goodness ensues.
I've done 1000 meters with simple patch antennas and wrt54g routers running dd-wrt to create a wireless ethernet extension. Only heavy rain will drop the connection.
Otherwise look up the laser types. there are hundreds of websites on how to do this simple and common task.
$318 WiFi network bridge connects two locations up (Score:5, Informative)
There is an article at engadget [engadget.com] about this sort of thing. It requires line-of-site, but I'm sure you could manage that.
Link to the Article [businesswire.com]
Hope this helps.
Use Mikrotik boards, which run Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
I recommend using Ubiquity sR2 or SR5 mini-pci cards...and ground everything especially well.
Mikrotik boards run Linux and are extremely roboust and feature rich. But you can follow this wiki and have a transparent bridge running in no time flat:
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Transparently_Bridge_two_Networks [mikrotik.com]
We use mikrotik a lot in a wireless WISP situation. If someone thinks they are going to throw a bunch of this stuff hundreds of feet in the air and make a lot of money doing wireless Internet, they are in for a wild ride...that ends somewhere between hairloss and a straight jacket...but I do something almost exactly like what you are wanting to do with your father using Mikrotik, and it has worked very well and wasn't super expensive.
Again, ground everything as best you can, and use directional, not omni antennas (cheap omni antennas often have grounding issues than can pop the radio card really easy).
See also: wisp-router.com
Transporter_ii
Novaroam stuff works well (900Mhz no license band) (Score:4, Interesting)
-Karl
A rock record: http://www.instarmusic.com/ [instarmusic.com]
This wouldn't be on Cape Cod now would it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Legislation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I live, if you don't live in town, you pay the electric company to plant poles to deliver the power. You pay the well digger to dig you a well. And you pay the telephone company to string some line along those electric co. poles. If you don't like the above, you sit in the dark and use an outhouse.
Parent
Re:Directional High-Gain Antenna (Score:5, Informative)
Careful. Not ALL Linksys have antenna ports. Some do, some don't. I just bought one that doesn't. Not a concern for me, but don't buy one online without looking closely expecting them to have ports.
Parent