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house to house wireless networking. What is needed

S

samduhman

Senior member
Im not sure this can be done. A friend at work wants to allow his kids to connect to his network. He says they live approximately 500yrds away from him through wooded areas. Is it possible for them to do this without spending a fortune? What hardware would be needed?

Thanks

I need to recheck he may have said 500 feet. Also sorry forget to mention that he wants it to be wireless
 
Be aware that the difference between ground potentials between buildings makes it "possibly" dangerous to run an Ethernet cable between them. You could safely run optical cable or use optical isolators, but that's a bit pricey.

You could probably make WiFi work, with careful use of uni-directional antennas to attach two WiFi routers to each other. There are templates on the Internet for building specialized uni-directional antennas.
 
wireless might work, but for it to be effective you need a clear line of sight. if there is a stand of trees in the way and you can not clearly see the house in the summer, then wireless will more than likely not work.

At 500 yards (and ever 500 feet) you are beyond the range of standard Cat5/6 ethernet cabling and into the range of multimode fiber and that can run you up a few bucks...
 
after you factor in the costs and time to do this project, your friend can pay for the extra internet connection. Most of the commercial wireless bridges could probably work decently, unless it is thick forest, (you can also mount on poles if properly grounded). But since all of this would have to be outdoor type antennaes, the cost just isn't worth it for only sharing an internet connection.
 
I have a somewhat similar range circumstance, though in as many feet, urban, and with maybe better LOS (Line Of Sight).
Complementing Madwand1, here is included update to his of Rob Flickenger 5 July '01 at oreillynet.

These are the best of cheap (as in DIY, better said "inexpensive") antennae found. (Good, quality (indoor) readymade antennae start at about $50 delivered, from such as FAB-Corp, or wlanparts.)
You can approximate $$ outdoor gear with such as good soldering, epoxy paints, silicone caulks, enclosures from industrial hardware suppliers.
Quality generally depends on quality of components, particularly cable.
LMR-100A (or -295) equivalent WLAN antenna cable is better quality replacement for RG-316 and RG-178 (cheap quality).
Mil-C-17 RG-316/U with respect to RG-178B/U has less attenuation, is heavier gauge, and has thicker insulation.
Prefer TNC connectors over BNC. Add pigtail connector-adapter to protect delicate PCMCIA SMA jack.

Rob Flickenger (among other search keys) has links to calculators and caveats that you can work out on paper a lot of what's do-able with what designs.

DIY
FAB-Corp has high-quality cabling in hardware kits, find with keyword "cantenna".
A top-quality (indoor or through a window) antenna can be made at home with simple tools for about $20 total.
- http://www.netstumbler.org/showthread.php?t=5661
- http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html
- http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/ (The USB can get your signal to & from a high LOS.)
This kind of tech is increasingly used to great effect in the Third World. Flickenger has shown you can easily get ranges of miles this way, with RF LOS.

Per Tsaico, this likely won't be cost-effective in a short term. If you want the satisfaction, want to have your own little WAN and maybe a (nocat) node, it could be fun.

Please do let us know your results : )
 
Cantennas, home made or bought, do work well for what they are. But to get 500 yards, a regular cantenna will simply not do it. He could get maybe 300 yards, but 500? I think that would be pushing it for some of these lower end or DIY kits. He would need something more like Solectek's point to point product and bridge the two networks together. Their solutions are probably about $1200 for their low range stuff (about 1 mile). Add in $100 bucks or so for misc switch and wires for other house, and now you are looking at $1300 range for internet sharing. Also the addittional hassle of setting this up and maintaining it.

Now you are looking at roughly three years worth of just flat out buying a high speed DSL at $35 a month (and we know there are cheaper). Just get a second DSL/cable line and call it a day.
 
Originally posted by: Tsaico
Cantennas, home made or bought, do work well for what they are. But to get 500 yards, a regular cantenna will simply not do it. He could get maybe 300 yards, but 500? I think that would be pushing it for some of these lower end or DIY kits. He would need something more like Solectek's point to point product and bridge the two networks together. Their solutions are probably about $1200 for their low range stuff (about 1 mile). Add in $100 bucks or so for misc switch and wires for other house, and now you are looking at $1300 range for internet sharing. Also the addittional hassle of setting this up and maintaining it.

Now you are looking at roughly three years worth of just flat out buying a high speed DSL at $35 a month (and we know there are cheaper). Just get a second DSL/cable line and call it a day.
Click to expand...



With the blockage of the trees, he can pretty much forget about the wireless
 
Depending on what they need access to that network for, you could setup a simple vpn at the parents place, have the children connect on their own internet connection. This will give them access to everything on the other network......

now that I think about it, you can used hacked firmware on a linksys router to connect two remote routers via vpn.... this would work great
 
for that run, you will need LOS

there are inexpensive wireless bridges from both Zanzio (sic?) and the older Smartbridges stuff (ebay). I have a SMartbridges XO outdoor bridge, and an SMartbridges AP with about 8 miles in between (clear LOS) without any problems.
 
Sound slike the bset idea is to hire a lumberjack to clear a path between the houses so you can get your Line of Sight setup. Once that's done you have multiple options...

But you can get DSL for liek $13/mo these days so it's probably not worth it.
 
Tsaico asked,
He could get maybe 300 yards, but 500?
Click to expand...
Maybe.
"Cantenna" can be a convenient search key. Another is "homebrew antenna". The theme here is DIY.
NB: The following is predicated on obtaining RF LOS (as distinct from merely visual).
Flickenger has found you can easily get ranges of miles this way [homebrew DIY], with LOS.
Click to expand...
[previous post]
While the intended range might be just a couple of hundred feet, wireless afficionados everywhere have proven that it is possible to use the 802.11 family of devices to build reliable data links of 10 miles or more.
Click to expand...
[Flickenger, Wireless Hacks '03, p.208.] (Chapter includes complete how-to.) (A 2nd ed. is Nov. '05.)

Sam, if the family likes to play with gear:
I believe that it is largely this mysterious, intangible aspect of unseen global communications that draws people to embark on their own antenna projects. The deeply rewarding feeling of making something useful out of virtually nothing is worth much more than saving a few dollars on a network component.
Click to expand...
[Ibid, p.172.]

What can be gotten:
1.
500 yards = .284 mi. ~= .46 km
I played with the bazooka [cantenna] from the deck of my hillside house, and was astonished to find that it picked up an AP I'd detected while stumbling on the freeway in my car (using my Mobile Mark clone on the dash). Plugging the GPS coordinates in from the freeway into Microsoft Streets & Trips, it turns out the AP is about 4 miles away! Using the bazooka on at my house, the SNR was 8dB (signal ~-88dBm). As a comparison, I also tried the biquad. Using the biquad, the signal is unstable w/ max 4dB SNR, and it catches the AP for only a second at time.
Click to expand...
[lincomatic, '05. homebrewant, 14Mar06.]

Woks and cheap mesh scoops greatly enhance USB Wi-Fi adapter range--to several km LOS (Line Of Sight), 3-5 km [~3300-5500 yd.] typical. Construction's a breeze, dongle adapters are cheap, and just normal loss-free USB cable and connectors can be used. Cable runs of ~5m allow "signal sweet spot" locating too. [Stan Swan, Massey University, Wellington, NZ. 31Jan06. usbwifi, 14Mar06.
USB dongle might allow achieving RF LOS by raising the antenna with minimal mass and without the attendant signal loss of antenna cable.

Pigtail pix, sources for fittings and cables.
WaterProofBoxes [seattlewireless.net]. Flickenger used a rubberized mailbox in a cheap myler windshield reflector, uptime more than a year. [Flickenger, '03, pp.168-9.]

Ham Radio operators have been designing and building homebrew microwave equipment for years.
[seattlewireless.net, AntennaHowTo]

Mast & Antenna Installation, home-made from a surplus TV dish, 8297m link, clear LOS.
3m galvanised pipe (32mm external diameter), modified Conifer (ex Galaxy) 24dBi antenna, 3 guy wires, 3 large eye bolts, assorted ubolts and nuts and bolts, coax, silicone
Mast & Antenna Installation, 10162m
Mast & Antenna Installation, 12437m
Other surplus dishes may use a cantenna feedhorn. [martybugs]
Biquad feed for a Primestar dish yields particularly impressive specs. [Flickenger, '03, pp.187-9.]

2.
Move Your Access Point Outdoors? Here's How.
Our goal is to use an exiting access point and without modifying the system build a wireless bridge that can make a one mile [1760 yd.] point to point link. We want to remain strictly legal and extend our range.

In order to accomplish this goal we will need to hit the following milestones:
1. Build an antenna enhancement which will not violate the integrity of our existing system.
2. Build a weather proof container for our AP.
3. Carry power to the AP without running AC to our roof top (a decidedly bad idea).
4. Move our AP out of the house and up onto the roof or side of the building where it has clear line of [sight] to the other end of our link.
Click to expand...
[M. Erskine. [no date found]. outdoor_ap, 14Mar06.]
This move may allow another way of achieving RF LOS by raising the AP without the attendant signal loss of antenna cable. Flickenger, '03, has more POE and variations.

2.a. AP outdoors] 2.5 km. [DrDoom and klmar. Dated 03Oct03, 14Mar06.]

3.
This is just a sample of what's available.
This if you like DIY and doing projects, not for the money but the satisfactions.
So if you try any of these, please also post back to the sources, too; they'd like to hear. We would, too : )
_____
 
500 yards through wooded area?

No Pringles or other hocus-pocus would help.

You need to build two towers and install Outdoor Wireless Equipment on top of the towers creating clear line of site.

Depends on the size and location of the towers it can be a project that would cost 2-5 thousands.

It would the same for 500 feet as well.

:sun:
 
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