Beaming a signal 8 miles, need equipment

[MBony]

I've got a farm that I'm trying to beam an internet connection to from town. I have a water tower on the farm that should provide clearance and have another antenna in town. My question is about equipment. I'll just be shooting a DSL connection out there, but wanted to know if anyone had experience with any particular antennas. Also, will I need to run power out to the water tower and the antenna in town or do I just run a cat5 line directly in to the antenna itself?

 

[RebateMonger]

Wikipeida's article on long-range WiFi might be helpful.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: MBony
I've got a farm that I'm trying to beam an internet connection to from town. I have a water tower on the farm that should provide clearance and have another antenna in town. My question is about equipment. I'll just be shooting a DSL connection out there, but wanted to know if anyone had experience with any particular antennas. Also, will I need to run power out to the water tower and the antenna in town or do I just run a cat5 line directly in to the antenna itself?

to start, this is almost certainly against the ToS of your ISP. sharing the connection pretty much always is.

second you need to read this thread to get an idea of what youre in for.

at 8 miles, you need good antennas and VERY sturdy mounts, largely unobstructed Line of Sight and, preferably, experience.

 

[MBony]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: MBony
I've got a farm that I'm trying to beam an internet connection to from town. I have a water tower on the farm that should provide clearance and have another antenna in town. My question is about equipment. I'll just be shooting a DSL connection out there, but wanted to know if anyone had experience with any particular antennas. Also, will I need to run power out to the water tower and the antenna in town or do I just run a cat5 line directly in to the antenna itself?

to start, this is almost certainly against the ToS of your ISP. sharing the connection pretty much always is.

second you need to read this thread to get an idea of what youre in for.

at 8 miles, you need good antennas and VERY sturdy mounts, largely unobstructed Line of Sight and, preferably, experience.

Thanks for the reply. Would it still be violating TOS even if I own both locations?

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: MBony

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: MBony
I've got a farm that I'm trying to beam an internet connection to from town. I have a water tower on the farm that should provide clearance and have another antenna in town. My question is about equipment. I'll just be shooting a DSL connection out there, but wanted to know if anyone had experience with any particular antennas. Also, will I need to run power out to the water tower and the antenna in town or do I just run a cat5 line directly in to the antenna itself?

to start, this is almost certainly against the ToS of your ISP. sharing the connection pretty much always is.

second you need to read this thread to get an idea of what youre in for.

at 8 miles, you need good antennas and VERY sturdy mounts, largely unobstructed Line of Sight and, preferably, experience.

Thanks for the reply. Would it still be violating TOS even if I own both locations?

Yeah you should be fine in that aspect. How much money are you putting in on this project? That will pretty much determine what type of equipment you can get. As long as you have LOS, it's definitely possible though even with 8 miles with two directional antennas on both sites.

 

[spidey07]

Don't forget about fresnel zone. First image to pop on google, there's a formula for it based on distance.
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.u...grams/Fresnel_zone.jpg

 

[Modelworks]

You need to download radio mobile off the thread linked earlier, and put in all the variables for your area. That will at least tell you if you got a chance .
http://www.g3tvu.co.uk/Radio_Mobile.htm

 

[drebo]

You should have no trouble at all going 8 miles if you have fairly clear line of sight. I have gone about this long using 2.4ghz Cisco Aironet gear using their 28dbi dish antenna.

Your best bet is to contract this out to someone qualified for installation of this gear. They will take care of all of the power you need (delivered over coax to these radios), as well as calculate all of your angles and take care of mounting everything.

This is definitely not something you want to tackle yourself if you don't have experience.

 

[cmetz]

There are legal limits to the amount of effective signal power you can emit on the ISM band. That is, if you have a high-power transmitter and a high-gain directional antenna, you could be way above the legal limit. Even if each are individually FCC approved for use and okay, the net emitted power of the system may not be. This could get you shut down by the FCC if they ever investigated (for example, someone within your beam had problems, traced it to you, and called the FCC about it). Most "professional" Wi-Fi people I've met seem to completely ignore the FCC rules or be totally ignorant of them, but real RF data transmission people stick to the rules religiously.

Please do your homework and try to stay legal, the FCC rules for the band are there for a reason - so we can all make productive use of the ISM band.

 

[ScottMac]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Don't forget about fresnel zone. First image to pop on google, there's a formula for it based on distance.
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.u...grams/Fresnel_zone.jpg

THere's a good distance p2p spreadsheet on Cisco's prime site too. IF I get time, I'll try to find it and post the link.

 

[wlee]

You might also have a look at HDCOM for the equipment and consulting. They sell long range WiFi Bridge kits as well as licensed microwave stuff.