I have a wireless router in my house and was wondering about hooking
up my neighbour to give them access to my broadband,

Their house is 150 ft across the road and the signal would need to go
through 2 external walls and probably a tree or 2.

My router is a 3Com 54g OfficeConnect

What hardware would I need to get in order to make this work. Money is
an issue I am afraid so the cheaper the better.

many thanks

Harry

Harry wrote:

The trees will be the killer here.  Is there no true line of sight
possible?  If you can not find a line of sight then you will not
succeed.  If there is a line of sight, then use external aerials and
it should work very well, but keep the aerial cable as short as possible.

David

I would mount your router in a weather proof box outside on the wall and you
should be able to do it, if not then your neabour would need to get a dish
antenna and point it at your router.

I do it this way with my neabour, he is across the road and down 4 houses,
we get decent speeds and solid connection 24/7.


Show quoteHide quote

I have the following for sale to enable house to house wireless internet.
I used them for 5 days.

2 - antennas
http://www.sharperconcepts.net/product_info.php?cPath=21_23&products_id=28
1 10 foot cable assembly -
http://www.sharperconcepts.net/product_info.php?products_id=186
1 25 foot cable assembly -
http://www.sharperconcepts.net/product_info.php?cPath=41_56&products_id=100


WayneS1***@hotmail.com

$95 delivered via ground carrier

We use these at a lot farther distance than that.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5755948360

Show quoteHide quote

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:53:44 +0000, Harry <A@A.A> wrote:

If you can't decide on the number of trees, follow the leaves down to
the trunk, and count the number of trunks.  Actually, what would be
more interesting is the type of leaves and how many feet or meters of
tree the signal will need to penetrate.  In general, about 10ft of
broadleaf tree is good for a -10dB signal lost.  At 150 ft, with
decent antennas, it is close enough that one could "drill" through the
leaves, especially if one can see something between the leaves.
However, if the tree is really dense, then it probably won't work.

The walls are a similar problem.  Without the slightest clue as to
their composition, it's difficult for my crystal ball to predict the
propogation characteristics.  How thick?  Any aluminium foil backed
insulation?  Any chicken wire?  Any concrete?  If so, forget it.  The
signal won't go through.

No it's not.  3com makes about 5 routers that fit that description.
Kindly disclose the model number (3CRW_____) so that I can determine
if the antennas are removable or not.

The cheapest way is to get a decent wireless client radio at the
neighbors with a decent high gain antenna.  Plant it in a window.
Move your 3com access point also to a window.  Take your chances with
the tree.  The trick is that the antennas must have some gain.  I
don't think it can be done with the stock rubber duck antennas.  I
suggest an 8dBi or 14dBi panel antenna such as one of these:
  http://www.fab-corp.com
(Select "Antenna Panel" as their webmonster seems to be making a
concerted effort to prevent anyone from bookmarking anything other
than the home page.  Sheesh).

However, the use of such external antennas assumes that your badly
specified 3com wireless router has removeable antennas.  If not, or if
inconveniently located, it will be necessary to add another wireless
access point for the link.  You can also use a wireless router as an
access point by simply ignoring the WAN port, setting the IP address
to something not duplicated, and disabling the DHCP server.  The LAN
port of this access point goes to one of the LAN ports on your
existing 3com wireless router.

My guess is that a pair of WAP54G access points ($70/ea), setup as a
wireless bridge so that the neighbor can connect more than one
computah, will work.  Two 8dBi Maxrad antennas at $25/ea.  Two
pigtails at $10/ea.  Some CAT5 cable at $5.  Total is $215 plus tax
and shipping.  Probably a bit high, but it will work if your countless
number of trees aren't too thick.

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:34:51 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
<je***@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote:

Ok, it's probably too expensive.  So, make your own antenna.  Methinks
the biquad at:
  http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/
is the easiest to make.  Forget the pigail and just use a fairly short
coax cable run to whatever connector is on the access point or
wireless router (R-SMA or R-TNC).

There are also proponents of the coffee can antenna:
  http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html
Lots of other sites with cantenna plans.

If the antenna on the 3com access point is non-removeable, then a
simple reflector will be a big help:
  http://www.freeantennas.com/products.htm

You might consider a 2nd access point on your roof, in a waterproof
enclosure, and with an omnidirectional antenna.  Supply service the
entire neighborhood so you can dilute your monthly broadband charges
accordingly.  Be sure to check your ISP's terms of service or you may
get unplugged.

Since the neighbor is across the street, you might investigate if
there are any common drain or utility pipes that might be used to run
wire, CAT5, coax, or fiber across the road.  I've done this a few
times when faced with political or LATA boundaries.  I've also run my
own cable between telephone and power poles with mixed results.  The
power and telco people have generally left things alone, but the
maniacs that clear off the weeds around the base of the wooden poles
were not as tolerant and chopped up my cable with a weed whacker.  If
you've never climbed a pole or done utility work, I would recommend
you get some qualified help as you really only have one life to give
for your neighbors connectivity.

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:34:51 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
<je***@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote:

Show quoteHide quoteIts a 3crwe754g72-a
Show quoteHide quote

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:32:09 +0000, Harry <A@A.A> wrote:

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/hardware/reviews/2004/q4/3com-g72.asp
Non-removeable antennas.

If your neighbour is across the road then it's fair bet that you have facing
windows, angle is not a problem.
Just place your router / AP on the window sill and your neighbour will need
to place USB adapter (on up to 5m of cable)
on his window sill. If necessary you can place silver foil on card, bent to
a VS. shape or parabolic arc behind either or both.
That's what I do, works a well without any silver foil, but with steadier
signal strength / quality with the silver foil.
Regards,
Martin

One serious problem with this can be multipath reflections off
of passing vehicles, or worse yet having a vehicle pass that is
large enough to simply block the signal entirely.  E.g., a large
van parked on the roadside in just the right place can totally
kill the signal! If one or the other (hopefully both) buildings
has a second story, it is significantly better to have one or
both units in facing windows that are elevated above road level.

Try aluminum foil; it works just as well and is much less
expensive than silver foil... :-)

I did a little fooling around with that concept awhile back.  I
found that without careful adjustment it is possible to get 3-4
dB gain with a very crude reflector.  The trick is proper
spacing between the reflector and the antenna.  It should be
just about exactly 4 inches.

The size of the reflector, and for that matter the shape, don't
seem to be very important.  Another 3 dB, at least, can be
squeezed out perhaps with shaping and *very* careful adjustment
of the spacing.

Floyd L. Davidson <fl***@barrow.com> wrote:
Four inches!  Youch!  I didn't even try out that far.
In near range, about 3/4" (a handy chunk of Styrofoam) taped to a 9" pie
plate, with a DLink DWL-122 dongle taped to that, seemed to give noticeable
improvement.  I tried a few distances, but not out to four inches.

Later I moved to a coffee can, which I think was better due to some side
rejection.  I didn't try any parabolics, but the parabola at
freeantennas.com would have been far less than four inches.  On the other
hand...

Four inches?  Was there science for that, or just experimentation?

d***@XReXXAdvic.usenet.us.com wrote:
Just how big is the antenna in a DWL-122 dongle?  If it is
shorter than a halfwave dipole you might actually be getting a
very different effect than I am with the longer dipoles used for
"fullsized" antennas.

There are some similarities, and some significant differences,
in feeding a parabolic.  For example, take a look at any of the
satellite TV antennas, which are Ku band (13-14Ghz).  I don't
see the small dishes that are used elsewhere, but for example
the 1 meter dishes that are common here have a feedhorn that is
almost a couple *feet* from the reflector!  That's several
wavelengths!

The main difference is that with that design the only signals of
significance are those reflected off the dish into the feed horn
(a unidirectional antenna used to "illuminate" the reflector).

Since we are using a reflector behind an omni-directional
antenna, both reflected and incident signals are used, and the
spacing is adjusted not to obtain full illumination of the
reflector, but rather to phase the reflected and incident
signals so that they add rather than cancel when they come from
the right direction.  A whole different animal.

Science?  That is the theory developed, post facto, to explain
what happened when you experimented... :-)

Actually, the first time I tried it, I purposely put a WRE54G
repeater very precisely the length of its antenna away from a
the side panel from a computer case.  I fully expected it to
change as it was moved, and thought it might get better at longer
distances.  Much to my surprise, it didn't.  It was no surprise
that going closer didn't help either.

Now, consider another factor though.  If this is changed from a
simple reflector into something at approaches a waveguide, for
example if the foil is on a cardboard box and covers the sides
as well as the back...  it is a very different beastie.  It
would be very similar to a cantenna, and the distance might be
much shorter than 4 inches.

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