Building a 10 mile wireless bridge (pics)
 

Does anyone here have experience with long range wireless bridges?

I have erected a 100' communications tower at my house to get a link from my office about 10 miles away. The product purchased is good for up to 20 miles but we are having trouble getting a link. We will be installing higher gain antennas on Friday which should help things but I wanted to see if anyone here has done this and has experience they can share.

Here are the links to the products used. I have 2 of each item to complete the bridge setup.

Router
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=2&pid=35

Antenna
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=2&pid=56


Here are some pics of the tower erected yesterday.

http://www.bradgosse.com/antenna_day...2-Images/1.jpg
http://www.bradgosse.com/antenna_day...2-Images/5.jpg
http://www.bradgosse.com/antenna_day...2-Images/9.jpg
http://www.bradgosse.com/antenna_day...-Images/12.jpg

impressive


the state you live in allowed you to "erect " such a ugly think in the middle of nowhere ?

just put a big red fiery eye at the top of it, and charge nerds admission to see it.

Fuck, that shit is BIG ! How much does it cost ? and why are you doing this ?

your brain will explode soon :1orglaugh

Cost was around 20K so far. I may have to spend more putting up a tower at my office. I am trying to get a wireless high speed link between my office and home. I can't get any high speed options at home so this is my only solution. Additionally I will be reselling high speed internet to rural clients off the tower.

At the end of the day it will save me lots of trips to the office just to upload files.

cancer tastic :uhoh

20k so far ? you better have some ideas, on how to sell this :)

I am in Canada. 100' communications towers are allowed anywhere here as long as you use the federally approved tower which I did.

how much was that tower?

It's not a cellular tower just 80211b No worse than the wireless network in your house

Very Nice Brad :thumbsup :thumbsup

Pretty damn sweet.

When you say having trouble getting a link, you couldn't be more vauge, any and all specifics help, especially on GFY.
:1orglaugh

the tower alone was 16k CDN installed

Is it possible to temporarily try another brand of access point? dlink's consumer AP's are fine for wandering around the house, but they're not the best choice for long haul links.

I am getting no signal between the 2 bridges. I can get a signal about halfway between the 2 in my car but there is no link at all between them at 10 miles.

We have a direct line of sight between the 2 units and they were pointed by GPS locations by professional installers.

just make sure you have a clear shot ! if you have trees int he way it gets ugly quick ! I played with this for 6 months spent also about 5K on equipment finally gave up and paid for a fractional t-1 for 600 bucks a month for a whopping 384K.


get 2 of the giant 24db dish type antenneas you will be much better off..

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/

Well this particular product is made for harsh outdoor setups. However now that the tower is up we will be trying other products if Dlink can't get the connection.

I just assumed that since they rated these units for 20 miles that 10 would be easy :)

At my old offices in Ft. Lauderdale we did that. Had a custom microwave antenna installed on the top of the office buidling that beamed over several miles to the access point.

It worked really well even in bad weather.

Lars,

We are trying the parabolic 24 DB antennas on Friday. I have my fingers crossed that they will do the trick. Thanks for your feedback.

Alll that money and you're using 802.11b??

802.11g bro, G.

-p

Dude, you need to break out the leaf blower. :) I thought my house was bad, surrounded by giant leaf maples.

Well sometimes you have to go to the extreme to get what you need...

seems like a cool idea. how secure is a connection like that though? especially for a private network.

Impressive. I hope you get the signal after all that effort.

I really like the area / trees.

I thought about installing wireless antennas between my house and office (I'm not sure about the distance, but its much less than half mile) but that's unreal.

That is hardcore.

In the late 80's a friend put up an antena on the roof of one of my clients office in New York City.

MotherFucker failed about 2 years later when nobody noticed somebody a few miles away was adding a floor or some structure to their skyscraper. :mad:

What you are talking about is Line of sight. And if you are just trying to use a regular wireless antenna, it way not work that well.

We have a system here that uses a radio signal. It is kick ass. FAST AS HELL. Very close to T3 speeds on a regular basis.


Hit me up on ICQ if you have any questions.

PS. it is not my system, but we can put you in touch with the guy. He may be willing to help.

Looks very impressive!:winkwink:

I think the leaves compliment the surrounds :)

spit mountain dew out with that one good job lol

should be fun the first time lightning hits that bitch!

We have a grounded lightning rod :) I bet the whole tower lights up for a second when it happens tho

here is a idea move out of the middle of nowhere lol.

I've done a bunch of these. I'm assuming you were smart
enough to buy an amplifier before attempting more than a mile,
so try tilting the antenna about 5 degress virtically up from
where you think it "should be". It's likely that your not adjusting
properly for the fresnel.


(if you didn't buy an amp, check out www.ydi.com for really
good and inexpensive ones...)

OK, first things first....did you plug the power cord in?

:winkwink:

http://www.sveasoft.com/modules/phpB...wforum.php?f=6

The masters in long range wireless connections.. they sure helped me out a few times..
They have some awesome DIY hardware you can build to boost range..

Have fun..

you can always roll out a wire...
few cents per feet, its a lot cheaper ... do the math ;-)

Lot of work for a wireless conection only one person will use.

Get yourself some decent Parabolic antennas and make sure that you take into account the curvature of the earth and elevation of both locations when you make your shot. You will also need to make sure there is no foilage in the way due to the fact that 2.4GHz is the same frequency that water resonates at (think microwave ovens). If there are trees in your way I'd go down to 900MHz which would be a little slower but you'll be able to do longer shots with it. I've been able to do 25-30 Mile shots on two senao pcmcia 200Mw cards a 24dBi antenna at one end and a 16dBi yagi on the other. One more thing you may want to consider is to use high grade cable such as LMR-400 or better. If you need any help, PM me an I'll offer you some assistance.

Here's some links that you may want to check out:

HyperLink Antennas
Seattle Wireless
Personal Telco

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

haha, that was my first thought too :winkwink:

Sounds like a big project!

Beautiful property :thumbsup

:thumbsup Nice! Looks impressive!

$20,000 and it still doesn't work?

and all this for an 802.11B signal?

jesus christ, some people just have NO clue what to do when they get money

You will forever by my hero!

If I could have done this in Texas, I wouldnt have moved to Las Vegas. I hate living in the fucking city.

What about GPRS via cellphone?
Or is that sloooooooooow?

how do you plan on protecting the data? wireless security still isnt all that great