Extended wireless coverage

Bigsquatch

I have a customer who needs wifi coverage at a building about 150 to 200 feet away from their house. It will be used for master to master communication, receiving camera images and also for internet access.

There is wireless access at the house but I need to extend that wireless network to the outlying building.

Have any of you folks ever set up long range wifi similar to this, and if so do you have any recommendations on which equipment to use? I've looked at several antennas and bridges but I have no experience dealing with those products or the companies that manufacture them.

ericmedley

Bigsquatch wrote: »

I have a customer who needs wifi coverage at a building about 150 to 200 feet away from their house. It will be used for master to master communication, receiving camera images and also for internet access.

There is wireless access at the house but I need to extend that wireless network to the outlying building.

Have any of you folks ever set up long range wifi similar to this, and if so do you have any recommendations on which equipment to use? I've looked at several antennas and bridges but I have no experience dealing with those products or the companies that manufacture them.

We have put up WIFI networks in boat marinas and other such things. You can get a YAGI antenna. It is essentially a hypercardiod patterne antenna that really focuses the signal in one general direction. The inverse is also true. It acts as a lense to see the far side transmissions better.

I'd higly recommend getting a professional quaility WAP to do this. The higher end Aeronets by Cisco are great.

Bigsquatch

Thanks for the recommendation.

I assume then that I can connect the YAGI directly to a WAP at the house and then use a wireless bridge at the other end with another YAGI attached?

Spire_Jeff

Bigsquatch wrote: »

I have a customer who needs wifi coverage at a building about 150 to 200 feet away from their house. It will be used for master to master communication, receiving camera images and also for internet access.

For such a short distance, is there no way to trench a wired or fiber connection to the other building?

Jeff

trustworthy

WiFi to go

Build yourself a couple of these...

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

PhreaK

+1 on the cantennas. They may look like a dodgy solution but they can be supprisingly effective, not sure if I'd actually sell one to a client though.

I'm with Spire_Jeff on the idea of trenching a cable though. If you can trench a fibre run it will give you a lot more bandwidth to use for future expansion and you won't have to worry about wireless security etc.

Bigsquatch

Yeah trenching is out of the question, too much has been built in between and too much pavement is there.

I'll look at the cantennas. Would have to make it look very nice though.

DHawthorne

There are several more professional-looking solutions out there: here is one supplier - http://www.radiolabs.com/products/antennas/long-range-wifi-antenna.html .