Hi Steve. Stephen and I and a few others were looking into building a
"community wireless network" .. basically a way to lash together
several users sharing a T1 or similar broadband wired access. This is
pretty sophisticated stuff, with Power Over Ethernet (POE), antennas,
outside utility boxes with wireless routers and so on.
This is different than simply extending the range of a wireless base
station, which is likely what you'd find workable. I've not used a
repeater, but as I understand it, most wireless base stations can be
configured to be an intermediate bridge between a client and a base
station. The airport express is a small "wall wart" that does this
rather nicely. Google "Wireless repeater" for lots of hints.
As mentioned by others, better antennas can help too. The sudden
change is often due to foliage and similar environmental things.
Our earlier rigs had roof-top antennas aimed carefully at the land-
line house which had an omni antenna. The wireless community network
was a WAN network, with an ethernet snaked into the house, and which
also powered the roof-top basestation via POE. Oddly enough, you'd
need another wireless basestation if wireless LAN was desired inside
the house! Hard to grok.
-- Owen
On Jan 27, 2008, at 10:38 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Stephen/Owen -
>
> You reported some pretty amazing results using a directional
> antennae with 802.11g 6 months or more ago.
>
> I'm trying to solve a problem for my mother-in-law (pressure is ON)
> where she formerly picked up her network via 802.11g from her son's
> house about 100ft from hers.
> A few weeks ago something changed abruptly and the apparent signal
> at her house (in the window facing the window his router is in)
> dropped from marginal to abysmal... basically she can no longer
> get network from the wireless from inside her house.
>
> I'm looking at the possibility of repeaters and of external
> antenna(e), etc. I haven't seen the router, it was provided by
> Qwest and doesn't sound like a Linksys from her description.
> They've done some channel hopping on the off chance it was just
> interference, with no results.
>
> Both houses may be "well shielded"... he is an architect/builder and
> I'm pretty sure used reflective-foil fiberglass insulation in his
> walls and he clad her entire house in corrugated steel. This is why
> I wasn't surprised before when she had to go to a window in her
> house to get his signal. Actually I was surprised she got anything
> at all.
>
> These two psuedo-faraday-cage houses are why I imagined a repeater
> (in her window) and possibly a directional antennae (in his window)
> would likely do the trick.
>
> Any thoughts/ideas/observations? As much as I like to experiment,
> I don't like doing it in front of my in-laws (I'm probably about to
> find out they are subscribers to this list!)
>
> - Steve
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