Personal 2km Wifi point-to-point problems - Help would be greatly appreciated!

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:55

just_grass said:
yup.

i have set up a wireless peer-bridge network with 3 base stations across a car breakers yard.

one of the stations had to be put next to one of the engine bays. - this sometimes got full - either with large hunks of metal engines or with large cars sat parked in the way and would knock that building off the network.

re-situating the station on the roof sorted it (higher than the vehicles and other metals)

obviously in your case it may not be the shear thickness of anything that prevents the signal, it could be the distance coupled with a very thin object in the way.

Alex

Very interesting.

We did have an early logistical problem in that my mate's missus wasn't very impressed with the idea of mounting external antennaes on the front of her house.

We settled the issue amazingly when we discovered I could put the antennae inside the attic and it would still work through the roof. So my external antennae is actually inside the attic too.

The only difference of course is that there is not any stationary object parked in front of the house for long periods of time.. anything that did turn up would come and go very quickly (e.g. parcel force).

What wap units would you recommend alex (i.e. what did you use for above job) and how have you managed the configuration of access points and bridges?

The reason i ask is because I am actually running the wap in his attic in bridge mode and mine in access point because that's the only way I can access his system behind my wap. The other way around and I can only access the bridge but not the access point.

I will have to map out the full spec of the system and include some photos as I'm actually running two systems in his attic and two receivers on my end.

Then i have a further bridge bouncing off one of the access points that also receives the broadband signal.

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 14:00

if you want to add me to msn to talk this through thats fine, (just_grass[at]hotmail.com) - but i used buffalo equipment.

they provide a bridging mode which supports multi-point bridging (ie multiple APs) you added a list of the wireless (not wired) MAC addresses of each ap to every other AP so it knew which to allow communication to and from. the APs have to be on the same channel and use the same SSID.

I can't rememeber if security was an option for the bridging, but i can't see why not. but its locked to MAC addresses to is not completely open.

I would though, definetly try bridging mode and mount outside with direct-line-of-sight.

Hope this helps.
Alex

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 14:22

just_grass said:
if you want to add me to msn to talk this through thats fine, (just_grass[at]hotmail.com) - but i used buffalo equipment.

they provide a bridging mode which supports multi-point bridging (ie multiple APs) you added a list of the wireless (not wired) MAC addresses of each ap to every other AP so it knew which to allow communication to and from. the APs have to be on the same channel and use the same SSID.

I can't rememeber if security was an option for the bridging, but i can't see why not. but its locked to MAC addresses to is not completely open.

I would though, definetly try bridging mode and mount outside with direct-line-of-sight.

Hope this helps.
Alex

Thanks mate i may do that in a bit if it's ok.

I have it configured as you describe. System 1 sender is set to system 1 wap receiver mac code and vice versa - same for system 2.

Since we are either side of a valley we have absolutely clear LOS - but i won't be able to mount antennae outside because of his missus.

I can get about 6mb transfer speed on them with it located inside with a ping of 3 - 20ms depending on load so I think it's ok indoors - easily enough for 2mb bb anyway.

I might hit you up later then, difficult to msn @ work.

Cheers ej

just_grass · 18 Apr 2006 at 15:07

what sender and reciever wireless equipment do you have? antennas and APs?

Alex

edit: found your aps.... which antennas?

evil.jelly · 18 Apr 2006 at 15:15

They are all using the same model wap - i just labelled them sender / receiver - hope I didn't mean to suggest another kind of system.

Mates house (sending system):

Netgear DG632 ADSL USB/Ethernet Modem

Pheenet Wap-011a

Backfire Antennae 15db:

My House (receiving system):

Backfire Antennae 15db:

Pheenet Wap-011a

edit: those are the correct antennas