how would you connect two buildings

[EvanAdams]

I have to connect a garage office to a main house in an extremely rural seting. The satalite dish for internet access is connected to the garage. If I hook up wireless G linksys router and a G PCMCIA card in a laptop I get a weak signal in the house, like one bar in the card utility, From netsumbler I get -75 or -80.

What EXACTALLY would you do. IE which exact antena would you use. (or other setups)

 

[yoda291]

Curious, just how far away are the two buildings would you estimate?

You could go with a directional antenna like a yagi.
I, personally, would run cat5 underground or some good metal shielded/grounded cat5 above ground.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

Is it ok to run a cable between to buildings? What do you have to do to a cable to make it safe to run between buildings?

 

[EvanAdams]

they are about 30 feet. But they are made of stucko which means they are wraped in chicken wire. Not good for signal strength. Also because of the stucko I cant drill in the walls.

It is in the country, if you can fit a pen in it a mouse will live in it, so I think a conduit would get eaten through. There is one pipe below ground but is behind drywall and 3ft underground. I dont know how to get to it and not really where it is in reality.

 

[FreakyGuy]

Build your own Cantenna?

 

[skyking]

any windows on the garage facing the house at all? any windows on the house facing the garage?
Take advantage of them. shoot for getting your signal to an AP in the window of the house, one of those that will act as a repeater in the house.

 

[EvanAdams]

so put a repeater in a window.... hmmm

 

[Concillian]

I agree with the DIY directional antennas. These can be made out of virtually anything. People have done it with cans and those asian cooking tools for getting things out of hot oil (son't know what they're called but they typically have a wire frame in approximately the shape of a portion of a sphere and a wooden handle.)

Point the two directional antennas at each other and you should have plenty of signal. Omni-directional antennas are no good for this application, directional antennas will have 10x the range, but only in one direction.

Even a directional antenna on one end will help quite a bit.

 

[EvanAdams]

will an antena help in range and penetration through walls?

 

[skyking]

if the wall has enough metal mesh in it, nothing will help. That is why i suggested the window trick. Placing cantennas in the windows would be best, but not necessary if the two windows can "see" each other. Shooting through glass, your range should exceed 200 feet. It can be at an obliques angle, so long as they can "see" each other at all.

 

[0roo0roo]

2 directional antennas. remember, wifi has a range of 11miles if correct directional antennas are used. very focused ones baiscally

 

[cmetz]

EvanAdams, extremely rural settings sometimes have trees, which are really killer for 2.4GHz signals... that whole water thing.

What's the budget here? There are proprietary wireless point-to-point bridge solutions specifically for this problem that will work much better than Wi-Fi, but for a price. On the cheap, cantennas are it. Also on a high budget, fiber is higher bandwidth, lower latency, and a lot more reliable.

 

[prometheusxls]

If you have no windows. Go into the attic come out in the roof line area. A little hole though the side. It cant be a stucco Roof. From there either runa wire from point to point or use the Cans. Its up to you. GL.

 

[martind1]

Originally posted by: FishTaco
Is it ok to run a cable between to buildings? What do you have to do to a cable to make it safe to run between buildings?

do not run the cable between the 2 buildings. the ground potential is likely different and could cause your equipment to be destroyed.


you can search through the forums here, I know this questions has been answered.

 

[Aves]

Originally posted by: martind1

Originally posted by: FishTaco
Is it ok to run a cable between to buildings? What do you have to do to a cable to make it safe to run between buildings?

do not run the cable between the 2 buildings. the ground potential is likely different and could cause your equipment to be destroyed.

Yep. If you decide to go wired then fiber would be the way to go. Not cheap at all though.