Pics of my Aerial and Truck. Yes I am insane.

[Evadman]

For those of you who asked, here are some pics of the setup I use when I have to be online, but am not at home. This setup cost me less than $50. But took me forever and a day to get working right.

This setup is able to connect me to my home from work. ( About 9 miles ) The farther I go the worse the uplink speed is. When I am using this from work, I get about 90kbps ( 9K ) or about 90% more than a maxed out modem. The good thing is that my ping is still well below what a modem would give me. The aerial on my truck is a twin of the same one I have in my attic. from my attic the signal travels though coax to my wireless access point nothing special is needed at all. The coax just conects up to where one of the 2 stiock antennas go. super easy. The only things I needed were some N Connectors. No biggie.

not only that, but I can access my network from justa botu anywhere, which is cooler than hell when I want to download some music or something.

pic #1

This is the aerial or antenna. It is 550 cm long, and 2" in diameter. the circular reflector is 2' in diameter. The wire is ordinary 14 gauge electrical wire, the black cable is coax. The stand is 3' tall and from a halogen light setup. The pipe on the end that goes down to the bed of the truck is to steady the antena and help keep it in place.

pic #2

It takes a few minutes to get the thing pointed in the right direction. kinda annoying. The detection pattern looks kinda like a maple leaf.

inside

The silver box is my Lanbox. It is currently a 1600+ with my old GF3 Ti 200 for a video card. I already posted pics of the inside, but if youw ant more let me know.

The coax cable from the aerial goes right to a regular wireless nic card. nothing special. the stoick antena just gets unscrewed and the coax cable screws on with a simple adapter. No signal modifcation needed.

inside 2

Just a quick pic of the 300 watt inverter I use to power the whole setup. Damn does it get hot!

inside 3

And here is the setup that I see when I play online.. The monitor is a LCD 14.1" that I got for $229 from CompUSA. If I am going to be using this for gaming more often, I am going to need a better screen. the ghosting sucks.

If you are really bored like me, then go here:
aerials
To build your own aerial.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip into my world. And yes, I got picked on in chool for ebing a nerd. but guess what, I can now buy and dell the @sses of those people who picked on me.

It does not work when driving!!! Just to cut off those questions

 

[sohcrates]

dude, are you serious??

what equipment do you use? just regular wireless consumer level stuff???

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: sohcrates
dude, are you serious??

what equipment do you use? just regular wireless consumer level stuff???

Yep. See that site I linked on the bottom. Shows you how to make the 2 aerial ( antenna ) that is the hardest part.

 

[papichulo1968]

This is an awesome setup

 

[Czar]

amazing :Q

 

[sohcrates]

wow, i *really* have a desire to build one of these...but can't think of any reason i'd use it.... hmmm...a dilemna

what was total materials cost?

do you need an SWR meter in order to correctly position it or anything?

what WAP do you use?

 

[olds]

 

[Thor86]

Mobile, wireless, and home-made. Gotta luv it. That's awesome!

Only time before those are "miniturized" so that they are as small as cell phone antennas in the near future. Now if only they can start the infrastructure for coverage and distance, satellite maybe?

 

[Indomus]

fuckin awesome i think ima throw on in my truck
problem is my house is relativly low in hawaii not many houses are high next to the beach. would this mess up the connection bad enough not to build one?

 

[abu]

Awsome!

 

[spyordie007]

So to clairify Evadman are you amplyfying the signal in either your truck or house?

If you are you realize that you could be breaking FCC regulations.

If not than I dont believe that it matters.

Either way great idea!

-Spy

 

[Evadman]

The materials cost was under $50.

If you do not have line of sight ( or within a few degrees ) then the system will not work. I live in the midwest, so no problems there.

The signal is not being amplifed at all. My effecive ratiated power is about 16 watts ( educated guess ) which is under the 20 max that the FCC allows. ( AFAIK ) Those 16 watts are just concintrated in a few degrees, kinda like a high powered led or laser. They must be lined up almost perfectly to work. I have the aerial in my attic pointed at my work, and I must point the aerial in my truck right at my house for it to work. If I cross the street to go eat lunck at McDonalds, it does not work because the aerial in my attic is not pointed at me any more.

It took me forever and a day to get it set right

I did not use a SWR meter, ( whatever that is ) I hust had a helper in the attic, and a cell phone. I locked the one in the attic in place when I got the highest bps, then jockied with the one in my truck to get it set just right. now, it just takes me pointing the one in my truck just right, as the attic one is locked in. I may figure out a motor system for when I am on the road

The WAP stuff is all linksys 802.11b stuff. Nothing special.

<edit>
Had some numbers wrong, silly me.
<edit>

 

[Tarfin]

That is friggin' incredible!

 

[Agamar]

Now all you need to do is figure out a way to motorize both the attic and the truck aerials so they follow each other

Oh yeah, and find a way to make the aerial fit in an SUV!!

 

[whalen]

It doesnt really matter how if you are under the maximum output power or not, it still breaks FCC rules to modify or use non certified antennas....but, unless you are interfering with some HAM radio operator and get reported, you are fine. Plus, the antenna is already mounted in your truck for a quick getaway.

 

[ktwebb]

My effecive ratiated power is about 16 watts ( educated guess ) which is under the 20 max that the FCC allows

Max EIRP for PtoP or PtoMp links is 4 Watts, or 36 dBM. Don't know where in the heck you got 20 watts. That'd fry bacon.

To be more explicit. The transmitter can be up to 1 watt, 30 dBm with the antenna being up to 6 dBi if the transmitter is one watt. With 802.11b equipment, that'd mean you would be amped. Since your not the gain would predominately come from the antenna. Standard output on a PCMCI card is anywhere from 30 mW 15(dBM) up to 100 mW on the cisco cards (20 dBm) Assuming no cable loss, if your card is 30 mW, you can have a 21 dBi antenna legally. Connectors and even short cable runs will introduce loss. How much without the right equipment is anyones guess. Depends on the crimper, the ability of the crimp maker and the kind of coax you used. With the right high gain antennas, and the ones on the webpage link are quite nice, you can definitely broaden your range. 9 miles without elevation is not gonna happen. There is no line of site at 9 miles from a truck on the ground to a two story attic at sea level. That is assuming sea level on both sides though of course. Perhaps the office 9 miles away is on a mountain or at the very least an extremely high hill. For a link at nine miles, of any performance, both antennas would need to be elevated quite high. Valley in between the house and the office?

 

[Evadman]

I did say it was roughly a guess