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Wireless Networking Hardware

Mid-Range Wireless Deployment for the Home User? 69

Posted by Cliff from the wireless-networking-for-estates dept.
ronin78 asks: "My father just bought a five-acre farm with multiple buildings. I am looking for a way to set up a WLAN that covers the entire property. All I have been able to find are commercial solutions from various providers, all of which are close to or above a thousand dollars and measure coverage area in miles. Do Slashdot readers know how to provide wireless access for more than one house without blanketing the entire neighborhood (hopefully for a reasonable price)? Are there single, high-powered routers that will do the job?"
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Mid-Range Wireless Deployment for the Home User? More

Mid-Range Wireless Deployment for the Home User?

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  • New techology (Score:3, Funny)

    by madaxe42 ( 690151 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @06:41AM (#12321690) Homepage
    RFC 1149 [ne2.com]

  • I've not yet implemented this, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rincebrain ( 776480 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @06:42AM (#12321692) Homepage
    I'd just grab several WAP54Gs [or whatever your preference is in 802.11g APs], along with a single WRT54G [or whatever your preference is in 802.11g routers, again] and configure them for ad-hoc mode.

    If you want something more complicated, configure one AP in infrastructure mode and configure the rest as repeaters.

    • Re:I've not yet implemented this, but... (Score:4, Informative)

      by BilliamBlake ( 843780 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @12:52PM (#12323251)
      Forget linksys for this job - if you want coverage. Their radios are the worst in aspects of sensitivity and power output - *both* are very important. If you modify the firmware and up the power they tend to run hot - and still at only a third as strong as better ones. I don't know why the IT industry is so slow to wake up to this. Go with SMC Elite Connect or Senao/Engenious for your AP. You can get a Seneo for around $150 and with a good antennae it will probably cover almost the whole area. They are the legal maximum for power output and have better sensitivity than either cisco or orinoco. SMC is practically just as good. Don't even ask how they compare with linksys. They also do wds so if you want to expand or add later then you can. In addition the build quality of these things is excellent, much nicer than linksys and much more value for your money, IMO.

      But take my word for it, check it out for yourself or take a suggestion from seattle wireless. Ask the pros what they use.
      • Advice duly noted. I'll have to try them, since I've had crappy experiences with D-Link [well duh] and SMC [old, old 802.11b device].
        • Thanks, BilliamBlake, for the tip!

          This http://www.senao.com.sg/Products2.asp?EID=133

          ( SL-3054CB3 Plus Deluxe - 802.11g Client Bridge and Access Point with WDS capability

          * Wi-Fi Compliant to 802.11b and g (in AP mode)

          * 4 functions in 1 box: Access Point, Bridge, Client Bridge and Repeater

          * Supports both modes, Bridge and Access Point simultaneously with WDS (Repeater Mode)

          * Up to 54Mbps data transmission

          * DHCP Server/Client (in AP mode)

          * Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)

  • Previous "Ask Slashdot" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mendy ( 468439 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @06:50AM (#12321708)
    http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/21 2210&tid=193&tid=222&tid=4 [slashdot.org] might be of interest

  • Five Acre Farm? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrgrey ( 319015 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @07:42AM (#12321831) Homepage Journal
    Did you just call five acres a farm? Hah! What city did you grow up in?

    • Re:Five Acre Farm? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by LazyBoy ( 128384 )
      lol :)

    • Re:Five Acre Farm? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is possible to make good money with a five acre farm.

      I think his problem is interference from all the fluorescent lights.
    • At least I wasn't the only one that thought that. Heck, the 300 acres that my family has is still pretty small.
    • Depending on the altitude and proximity to a large urban metropolis, it may be more like a suburban raised bed garden!

      Okay, serious on-the-cheap answer is the 802.11g AP's or routers linked together. A question for the OP: Aren't most of the buildings close together and what is out on the fifth acre corner that needs wireless access? Measurement equipment I could understand, but you don't need 802.11g for that...

    • OT:Five Acre Farm? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jdray ( 645332 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @01:16PM (#12323422) Homepage Journal
      While five acres is small by almost any standard for a farm, a lot of a farm's productivity has to do with where it's located. Having grown up in the (very fertile) Willamette Valley in Oregon, I can tell you that a five acre "gentleman's farm" can be productive enough to generate a meager income if managed right, and certainly is large enough for sustinence living. Three acres in alfalfa (hay), an acre for small livestock (goats, chickens, sheep, pigs, etc.), half an acre in vegetable garden, and the remaining half an acre for living space and outbuidings is a good model for income (mostly on hay, eggs and vegetables). Carve another two acres out of the hay field for more garden and/or livestock area, and you've got a sustinence farm that will support two or three families quite well.

      OTOH, five acres in the Eastern Oregon high desert makes for a good barrier between you and your neighbors and not much else.

      • Having grown up in the (very fertile) Willamette Valley in Oregon

        And as a typical Willamette Valley resident, are still quite ignorant about what the Eastern Oregon high desert is like, as evidenced by statements like this:

        OTOH, five acres in the Eastern Oregon high desert makes for a good barrier between you and your neighbors and not much else.

        Apparently you have never heard of irrigation [wikipedia.org]. You see, I grew up on a small-acreage "farm" in Central Oregon (another peeve, we differentiate into more

    • I certainly did not expect my choice of words to spark such debate. As Cliff suggests, it would be more properly called an estate, although still a small one (we've been calling it a compound, but I didn't want anyone to think that we were a militia or anything). It is zoned agricultural and has some gardening space (probably sufficient for subsistence), but was subdivided out of being a commercial farm long ago. I am originally from Jersey, however, and I have seen some five-acre farms that are quite pr
    • What state did you grow up in? There are plenty of people in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky still subsistence farming on less than five acres. A farm doesn't have to be measured in the hundreds (or thousands) of acres to provide food for the people who live on it. My grandfather plows his two acre garden with two Belgiums (really large draft horses). My inlaws live off of small gardens and orchards, keep sheep, pigs,chicken and bees. They preserve most of it, and sell their suplus for spending cash. The

  • 5 Acres isn't all that big (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) * <amphigory@gmail . c om> on Saturday April 23, 2005 @07:43AM (#12321833)
    An acre is roughly 40000 square feet, meaning a square acre is only 200 ft on a side. That means that your father's farm, if it's roughly square, is probably only 300 ft from center-to-edge. (Obviously, if the shape varies, that changes.)

    I have a five acre farm, and the wireless from my airport in the house makes it to my sheds, etc., about 100 ft. away - I do, however, have the external antenna.

    I strongly suspect that, if you simply put a standard, commodity wireless access point w/antenna on the top of a mast, that will give you most of the coverage you're looking for - at least as long as you have line of site to the mast.

    Alternatively, you can plant an access point anywhere there's power and link them together. But I doubt it's necessary.

    • Actually I was think he would need two or three base stations and a couple of directional antenna's .

      Remember Trees's, buildings, block, and there is no garruentee that the property is square.

      One Access point for each large building connected by a directional antenna. As long as you can bridge the points together it would work.

      Maybe two Airport extreme base stations one with the extended omni directional antenna the other with a directional antenna pointed at the first. The second one would be set to ex

    • Pre-N (Score:3, Informative)

      by pg133 ( 307365 )
      You might want to check out some of the Pre-N wireless comming on the market. [google.com]

      Pre-N Wireless Router Model WGM124 [netgear.com] NETGEAR's Pre-N Wireless Router is the best performing router based on Airgo True MIMO(TM) available with up to 8x the wireless coverage and speed than standard 802.11g.

      Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router [belkin.com] 800% greater coverage than standard 802.11g - Belkin Pre-N provides the industry's best wireless coverage, extending your range with improved reliability and fewer drops.
      • if the house is dead center.
        and the land is perfectly round

        if a g router goes 100 ft
        thats 31,400 sq ft of coverage
        800% greater coverage is
        251'200 sq ft
        but that's only a point 282 from the house,
        or 2.82 times as far away as the G...

        (it's 5am, if my math is wrong, apologies to Mr. Nambu in LA-this fault is mine, not his)

    • And, the antenna will also make an excellent lightning rod!
    • Alternatively, you can plant an access point anywhere there's power and link them together.
      So if he plants them, will new access points grow?
  • why not just string cat6 or unidirection wireless from point to point and normal wireless in each building w/ the gateway in the main building... Everything will route itself out. As far as I can tell there is no other real way of doing it since you need some connection between the buildings so its either wireless or wired.. since you dont need to cover everything make it uni directional wireless or just spend the day burying some cable between each building..

    • MM Fiber @ 100Mb/s (Score:3, Informative)

      by jaredmauch ( 633928 )
      I'd follow the use the cheap LinkSys gear (or build something fancy with a Soekris [soekris.com] box) but also pick up some old 100M MultiMode(MM) transcievers that have a FE on one side and fiber [ebay.com] on the other. Since you've got 5 acres (not that big honestly), i'd stick to wired for everything possible, it will also provide you the best reliability. Use some pvc pipe or conduit to keep it weatherproof outside and you'll be done and have reliable networking that can be upgraded in the future to gigabit and faster as ne

    • You don't want to mess with cables between buildings unless you are an electrical engineer qualified to deal with ground issues. This is much harder than you would think. Most network gear is not designed to handle this and will fry your computers. However it may work for a long time before trouble happens.

      There are some wired networks that can handle it, but CAT-5 is not one. The length limits on CAT-5 is enough that your network may not work between buildings anyway.

      There is any easy solution: gla

      • That small of a property probably only has one main feed with any electrical wired outbuildings using subpanels fed from the main panel. The short of a distance is unlikely to have ground loops that will "fry any equipment", any more than running a wire from the basement to the third floor would.

        That said, fiber would be preferable, so long as the person installing the terminations knows what he's doing. That stuff's a pain.
      • ethernet is balanced signal, with optoisolators on either end. Grounding is not an issue unless you're a dork and use STP. No issues.

        • Yeah right, do you really believe that they would put a $.30 optoisolater on a $4 ethernet card?

          Thick ethernet (10base5) was designed for this situation. Thinnet (10base2), and 10BaseT was not. Nothing faster was either.

          Use wireless, or glass fiber. It isn't that much more, and it eliminates worries.

  • Controling where the RF goes (Score:5, Informative)

    by WonderSnatch ( 835677 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @09:09AM (#12322097)
    without blanketing the entire neighborhood

    This is the part of your request that you're going to have a bit of trouble with. RF energy is a bit like water: it goes where it wants.

    Sure, if you were spraying water instead of RF energy, you could put a different nozzle on the hose to change the spray pattern, change the flow rate to control how far you spray, dig ditches to direct the water, etc.

    With the RF all you can do is put a different nozzle (antenna) on the hose (access point) and adjust the flow rate (power output). Unfortunatly there are no easy ditches to dig for e-mag waves!

    The above only considers one approach to keeping your neighbors off of your network, which I assume is your end goal really. There are lots of other options that I don't know as much about. Things like WPA [wikipedia.org] and captive portals [wikipedia.org].

    Hope this hepls some,
    Brett

  • Get one of these.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by huber ( 723453 )
    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=61816&item=5768462963&rd=1 we use them to cover the out side of out buildings. coupled with the correct airport they should go a couple of miles line of sight.
  • I would probably put in a master AirPort base station and rim it with AirPort Express units. That has flexibility because you can put the Express units only where they are needed, and they will serve as repeaters for the network. I'm an Apple guy, so I don't know if the Express would serve as repeaters for a non-Apple network. It might be worth a try considering the price difference between the Apple gear and cheaper solutions.

    Also, the problem may be more inside your house than outside. If you have a
    • I've had good luck using Airport Express units with a Linksys WRT54G as the base station. WDS mode works fine with both the stock WRT54G ROM or with the sveasoft [sveasoft.com] ROM. You can also use multiple WRT54Gs in WDS mode if you want to save money over the cost of the Airport units. The most significant advantages the Airport Express WAPs have over the Linksys is USB print sharing and the iTunes Express broadcasting (which REALLY sucks up the bandwidth!).

      The sveasoft ROM also allows you to up the power output o


  • This is a non-brainer.

    You should just need long-range 802.11 equipment to link buildings, especially as you probably have line-of-sight, or simply trees. In the latter case, and possibly in the former case as well, you probably want an external and top-of-building antenna. All of these are commodity items, so should be buyable off the shelf.

    For example, most standard 802.11 gear is 18dbm. The long-range gear is 22-23dbm. One PCCARD I looked at quoted an outdoor range at 1200-2300 feet, and that's obviousl
  • WDS seems to be what you want. You just get WDS-compatible access points (Apple comes to mind, but there are others that escape me) and sets you up to use the Wireless Distribution System.

    • Re:802.11g and WDS (Score:2, Informative)

      by TsEA ( 109514 )
      I've currently set up a network in my neighbourhood with 4 other houses, distances of about 50-100m (I'm only capable of using the metric system), with walls and such, and have succeeded quite easily using WRT54G's in every apartment, using a custom firmware ( sveasoft [sveasoft.com]) with both WDS capability, and ability to alter the transmission power (I have doubled it to about 50mw), and this works like a charm with speeds varying from 1 - 2Mbs. The whole thing is rather cheap (~70$ for each WRT54G) and works like a ch

  • some thoughts (Score:3, Informative)

    by max born ( 739948 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @11:43AM (#12322755)
    The FCC limits 802.11 power so buying expensive access points isn't going increase your range.

    soekris boards [soekris.com], if you can afford them, have the advantage of "power over ethernet" and no moving parts, plus they fit nicely into a weather proof boxes so can be mounted high up. If you don't need these advantages any old sub $50 access points should work.

    If you're really on a budget you can build your own [osvoip.net].

    Mostly, it's all about the antennas. In some experimetns I've read about, directional antennas have enabled signals to broadcast and receive across several kilometers (line of site). Check out these guys [demarctech.com] to see what's available as far as antennas go.

    Also, sign up for the bay area wireless mailing list [bawug.org] while you're building this. This is one of the better lists I've been on. There are some people that really know their stuff and you'll get lots of help and advice.

    Hope that helps.
    • The FCC limits 802.11 power so buying expensive access points isn't going increase your range.

      Power isn't the only thing money can buy. It can also buy a receiver with better sensitivity which translates into being able to close a radio link with a weaker signal.

      Mostly, it's all about the antennas. In some experimetns I've read about, directional antennas have enabled signals to broadcast and receive across several kilometers (line of site). Check out these guys to see what's available as far as ante

    • The FCC limits 802.11 power, but what are the regulations in other countries? When I installed my 802.11g hardware, it asked me what country I was in and threatened a severe penalty if I lied. Of course, this just means it must be hiding the GOOD STUFF. Can I increase the signal power or range of my 802.11g hardware by choosing a less regulated country??
      • From what I've seen, the US has the most liberal rules as to allowable power in the ISM bands that 802.11b/g uses. Most equipment, even the "high-power" devices, don't come close to the limit, 1 watt.
    • Thanks for the antenna information and especially for the mailing list. I'll need all the advice I can get!
  • Got any old digital TV dishes laying around? Some old soup cans? Sounds like some directional antennas are what you need for the point to point links.
  • Many wireless access points allow you to connect an external
    antenna. This is the first thing to try.

    You may also be able to have wireless access points repeat to each other.

    Here's an article that clearly describes how to do this with apple airports:

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107 454 [apple.com]

    (note that these work with PC's and macs)

  • Point-to-point or blanket? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WarPresident ( 754535 ) on Saturday April 23, 2005 @02:43PM (#12323981) Homepage Journal
    "My father just bought a five-acre farm with multiple buildings. I am looking for a way to set up a WLAN that covers the entire property.

    Do you mean just around the buildings, or everywhere on the property? If it's the latter, use a handful of cheap WAPs and high tech Pringles can antennae [netscum.com] on the out-buildings, pointed at the external antenna on the home.

    Do Slashdot readers know how to provide wireless access for more than one house without blanketing the entire neighborhood (hopefully for a reasonable price)? Are there single, high-powered routers that will do the job?"

    People are going to be able to snoop your RF communications if they want to. If you're worried about that, bury copper or fiber to the buildings. Otherwise, could I perhaps interest you in experimenting with laser communications? On the cheap? [arrl.org] Now where did I stash those Laser Tag toys...
  • D-Link seems to have just the thing - the DWL-800AP+. They're Wi-Fi repeaters that talk to your main access point and extend range. They claim these will extend your range up to1,312 feet outdoors and up to 328 indoors.

    http://www.dlink.com/products/resource.asp?pid=18& rid=76&sec=0

    • This sounds interesting. Where would I place it, and what particular advantages it would have over an antenna?
      • Scenario 1: Building A has an access point and an external antenna.

        The further you move from building A, the less signal you have. Unless you have an external antenna for your laptop, you may not be able to connect if you go too far away.

        Scenario 2:

        Building A has an access point and an external antenna.

        Building B has a repeater and an external antenna.

        You now have Wi-Fi in both buildings and all points in between. The advantage over Scenario 1 is that you have a better signal if you go from buildi

  • First, this is do-able.

    Second, What's the budget and what are the uses of this wireless LAN?

    - Budget directly influences what you CAN do, and how easily.

    - Purpose should drive the design.

    Specifically, if you are on the cheap, then the number and price of the APs, the infrastructure (interconnect, authentication servers, other....) are an issue

    The intended use is also critical. Do you intend to open this WLAN to the world, or do you want to keep it private?

    As others have mentioned, the Linksys WRT54G
    • I'm partial to just assuming that the wireless network is unsafe, and setting up VPN connections to get to anything outside of the wireless. I trust several of the VPN technologies "enough", wheras I just don't trust anything wireless. The earlier post mentioning "captive portals" is right on, IMHO.
  • this guy specialises in this in aust ive used him before he really knows his stuff http://www.freenet-antennas.com/ [freenet-antennas.com] he uses 802.11 standards over longer range then your average d-link or netgear AP

  • sans blanket (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If for some reason you really want to keep your signals, for the most part, on the property, you could add some reflectors behind the antennas of whatever radios you end up using. They'll get you some increase in strength on the property and really cut down on 'escapee' radiation.

    If you did high school physics and remember raytracing and interference from the optics portion, you can easily design your own reflectors.
    If not, use your favorite search engine to find the hyperphysics book at gsu.edu I forget t
  • Thanks to everyone, and please forgive any of my ignorance in these matters. The experience I have so far with wireless is a single Linksys router to serve a two-story house.

    The favorite suggestions seem to be either 1) using a (roof-mounted, I assume) medium strength omni-directional antenna to boost the router signal (we currently have a WRT54G, but are open to upgrading) or 2) linking access points using WDS. To clarify, we want to blanket the entire property, including the outdoors. For those who a

    • Is there any chance you could put a rough map of the property and building online somewhere? People can probably give you a better idea of some strategies to use if they know the shape of the property, where the buildings are, etc. Also, if you can, diagram any terrain issues (hills, ravines, etc).

      Also -- are you adverse to running some cabling outdoors if necessary?

      The buildings are probably your first priority, particularily the main house. This is because you really have two main obstacles to yo


    • At least look at these ideas
      wifi-base's cheap antennae [wifi-base.com]

      I have a large old house with more than 5 acres and by putting the WRT54G reasonably high up with a 12dB parabolic reflector made from a dried milk carton (same foil lined cardboard as pringles cans, but bigger) I can easily get a good signal everywhere, and no dicking around with expensive baby coax cables.

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