Outdoor Wireless Equipment Help

idirline

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice about setting up a private wireless network between 3 residential houses. I'm looking to buy some wireless equipment but need some advice on what equipment to get and whether the network is possible to achieve. I'm located in Ballincollig in Cork.

I've attached a diagram of the network I wish to build including a list of the equipment I think I need. I work in Computers but don't deal with external Wireless networks so I just want to make sure the network I'm hoping to build is possible and if the equipment I've listed will work together.

• Host 1 and Client 2 have one row of tress in the line of sight and are in a housing estate.
• Host 1 and Client 1 have some tress in the line of sight. Client 1 is on a hill overlooking Host 1.
• Will the 2.4GHz CPE at Client 2 be able to connect to the 2.4GHz Omni at Host 1?
• Will a 2.4GHz Directional antenna be sufficient to cover a distance of approx 4.6km with trees in the line of sight?
• I'm not sure what type of pigtales/CPE/Antennas/dBi I would need so I just listed them on the equipment list.

Can anybody recommend what equipment I would need to create the above Wireless Network. For Stage 1, I wish to get Host 1 and Client 2 connected so I can share resources and then once that link is solid I will start Stage 2 and get Host 1 connected to Client 1.

Any advice would be appreciated.

John

idirline

Can anyone suggest a forum or website I can get advice or help about buying Wireless equipment.

I've tried emailing IrishWireless.net, aerial.net, wipipe.com, wirelessconnect.eu and I've tried posting on boards.ie but as you can see I get no response.

Can anyone help??

rcanpolat

Hi John,

You should take a look at this post i just replied to http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056770646

The main problem with the project is distance. You could potentially make a device yourself or buy a device that will push a serious amount of watts into the antenna's to push them a very far distance however it is something that is regulated for safety and for good reason. Something to keep in mind is that wireless on 2.4Ghz works in the same wave as microwaves and microwaves cook food! Wireless devices are fine at small watts but when you start to hack up something and push large amounts of watts into it your basically building a ray gun that will cook someone from the inside out. The wireless device i use for penetration testing is rated at 1 watt (txpower set to 30) which i actually believe is illegal to do in ireland and i have to set my computers settings to bolivia so it allows me to push the power into the antenna harder. I would not stand anywhere near a device pushing out more then 3 or 4 watts. It might be fine for a dipole or multi directional antenna but in your case you will need a yagi uda array which is very directional and nobody wants a powerful beam of energy pointed at them or near their house. God only knows the implications it could cause with only weeks of usage.

Q: Will a 2.4GHz Directional antenna be sufficient to cover a distance of approx 4.6km with trees in the line of sight?

A: No, i don't believe so. The max distance i got with my 2.5Ghz Yagi Uda was around 1.5km's with a clear line of sight. At that distance latency and packet loss come into play slowing down the connection dramatically and the yagi works with small angles. Moving mine from that distance only a few mm's to 1cm disconnects the connection or causes massive signal drop.

From host 1 to client 2 you might get away with using a Yagi Uda because of the short distance. In winter you might be able to connect because of the tree having no leaves but in summer it could cause problems. Wireless will be more unstable in the bad weather though because its being hit by the elements.

As for client 1 i have seen connections happen through a yagi from 2km away from the top of a hill to the bottom however it had a pure line of sight. Again packet loss and latency were an issue. I just can't see that connection being stable what so ever.

Is there no way you can piggyback onto another house from the host to client 1? Ask the people in the home and explain your project and what you are trying to accomplish. Even offer a small amount of compensation for using their building to bounce the connection further. If there is nothing between the host and client 1 except for land you could ask the land owner for permission to install a solar powered repeater. Then send the signal to the repeater in field and have it redistribute the signal to another yagi. You don't need a lot of power to pull that off.

You should look at part 2 of my post on the other page. It deals with using the analog tv signal for pushing connections and that system works over miles and line of site is not an issue. Its speed however sucks!

I would also ask you to visit this site and read the wiki about the Mesh Network build in Africa: http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide

You can download the PDF here: http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/images/f/fe/Building_a_Rural_Wireless_Mesh_Network_-_A_DIY_Guide_v0.7_65.pdf

Out of curiosity though why do you want to build a private wireless network between 3 homes? If you all have a decent download/upload speed you should just do it over the web. Hit up UPC and get a 100 down/10 up connection, even explain to them what you are trying to do and see will they give you an extra few mb's each and do your file sharing or streaming over the internet. Its still going to be very fast because you are all so close to each other. 10MB up should just about allow you to stream high definition content to other users.

idirline

Hi rcanpolat,

Thanks for the detailed reply. There may be a way to piggyback from the host to client1 but I'm hoping to avoid that if possible.

I've read through the wirelessafrica guide and I would hope to use out of the box equipment instead of flashing Linksys routers.

I want to build a private network for offsite backup of personal data instead of paying a monthly/yearly subscription to an on-line provider. Also I have broadband but the client that's 4.3km's away is not able to get broadband as they're in a rural area.

There is a provider http://www.ccbisp.net who has Wireless links over distances of 4.3km so I'll fire them an email and see if they can help, maybe I can use their network.

Thanks again.

rcanpolat

idirline wrote: »

Hi rcanpolat,

Thanks for the detailed reply. There may be a way to piggyback from the host to client1 but I'm hoping to avoid that if possible.

I've read through the wirelessafrica guide and I would hope to use out of the box equipment instead of flashing Linksys routers.

I want to build a private network for offsite backup of personal data instead of paying a monthly/yearly subscription to an on-line provider. Also I have broadband but the client that's 4.3km's away is not able to get broadband as they're in a rural area.

There is a provider http://www.ccbisp.net who has Wireless links over distances of 4.3km so I'll fire them an email and see if they can help, maybe I can use their network.

Thanks again.

The problems of not flashing a Linksys router is that general standard routers within the average budget won't be capable of building a mesh because the manufacturer doesn't want the average user to deploy such devices because it will effect the sale of their commercial products. If commercial users realize that a bog standard Linksys router can perform complex setups then they won't opt for the expensive hardware that basically does that same thing but is rebranded and supported by the manufacturer. I can't say how much more a commercial device would cost you but i imagine you would be saving a few hundred by just flashing the device yourself.

Open WRT is a very stable platform especially that its built on a Linux kernel. I have a dedicated linux laptop and a headless backtrack linux machine used for offsite hash cracking that i use daily along with a NAS (Network Attached Storage Device) running Open Media Vault NAS that backs up my data and i trust in it 100% even though its community freeware based. Don't fear things that aren't 100% straight forward to set up. Often its just following a 5 minute tutorial to get set up.

I took a look at http://www.ccbisp.net and again another issue that would worry me is the cost of the subscription and the slow speed. As far as i can see they offer 1 / 2 / 3 mb connections over wireless (up to 50mb in their small print) and with their 3mb connection costing €50 i can only imagine what a 50mb connection would cost. 3mb's won't be enough for backing up large volumes of data.

If we take a look at their services we can see that:

Residential 1 - 1Mbits / 512Kbits - €25.00 - 10GB
Residential 2 - 2Mbits / 512Kbits - €37.50 - 15GB
Residential 3 - 3Mbits / 512 Kbits - €50.00 - 20GB
Business 1 - 2Mbits / 1Mbits - €45.00 - 20GB
Business 2 - 3Mbits / 1Mbits - €60.00 - 30GB
Business 3 - 3Mbits / 2Mbits - €100.00 - 100GB

1, The speed of the connection is going to be quite slow. For backup services the most important thing is getting the data duplicated off the machine and up to the "cloud". a 1Mbit / 512Kbit won't cut it! Neigher will a 3Mbit / 2Mbit connection. With that in mind the allowance is going to nuke you. A modern day computer holds 500GB's to 1TB of information. The best non custom service they offer is 100GB's (and this is combined upload and download)

Now if you were to contact them and ask them to set up the equipment to do this job but not connect you to their network you might be in business however they could hit you with a high figure as they won't be pulling you into a contract. They could also just tell you no and the equipment they have might also not be able to pull the data into a LAN from the 3 houses to create a multiple client backup system (i'm guessing each house gets a public ip, not a local from the routers dns service using that company's infrastructure) so i don't even know how you would start to get around something like that.

Besides that all i can suggest is get permission from the council and start dropping miles of cat6 cable or fiber cable into the ground.

Look the best approach to take is to set up a Yagi (by a 2.4Ghz Yagi for 20 quid) in the main house and connect it to a Wireless NIC (i recommend an Alfa awus036h) and point it at the house on the hill. Then on the hill go up there with another laptop and try to pick up the connection. If it works then start sharing files over the LAN and calculate the speed. You might get lucky and it might work out well for you (you will need 2 people to do this, somebody needs to be in the host house to move the yagi to positions to test the stability of the connection). If it fails then take another Alfa and another Yagi and connect it to the Laptop on the hill and try have the two wireless connections meet up half way in the air. If it works then your sorted and you can set up your network for under 150 bucks between the host and 2 clients.

idirline

Thanks rcanpolat,

I think I'll email them and hopefully they'll be able to help in some way.

Thanks again

John