Looking for a solution to get wireless internet access from one house 900ft to another house.   The two houses are line of sight but are heavily wooded between.    I found a Netgear WIRELESS 18 DBI PATCH PANEL ANTENNA that could be used on both ends but I do not know if this will be enough antenna or way too much.   Anyone got any ideas?

There's really no such thing as "too much".  If you end up overdriving the reciever you can just dial down the transmission power.

As for through woods, the answer is less good.  (My understanding) Water, including that in the leaves of trees, soaks up the RF.  This is exasperated with rain or snow.

300 yards is a bit far for the standard omnidirectional antenna.

Two wireless access points in bridge mode with high-gain directional antennas pointed at each other will do the trick no problem.




But, the only directional antennas i know of are ones that Cisco makes for their access points, which cost about $500 a piece + extra for the antenna.


You could search around.  

Too much was in the sense that if I can get by with a5-10dbi antenna then why spend the money on a 18dbi panel.  

Quoted: There's really no such thing as "too much".  If you end up overdriving the reciever you can just dial down the transmission power. As for through woods, the answer is less good.  (My understanding) Water, including that in the leaves of trees, soaks up the RF.  This is exasperated with rain or snow.

Here is an 18dbi panel from Netgear.  


Netgear 18dbi panel

Quoted: 300 yards is a bit far for the standard omnidirectional antenna. Two wireless access points in bridge mode with high-gain directional antennas pointed at each other will do the trick no problem. www.cisco.com/image/jpeg/en/us/guest/products/ps469/c1122/ccmigration_09186a00800c6a70.jpg But, the only directional antennas i know of are ones that Cisco makes for their access points, which cost about $500 a piece + extra for the antenna. You could search around.

Then go for it.



Seems like you got it all worked out.  


You can't have too "strong" of a signal.  The bitrate is calculated under "perfect" conditions, so the stronger your signal is the faster the connection will be.


In this case your transmitting through trees which will signifigantly degrade the signal.  The highest gain antenna you can find should be the one you get.



Unless you have a place to mount an antenna (on both ends) above the trees.

I've always wanted to build my own...  Here's something that will be a bit overkill for your needs, but looks fun, all the same...

BoBo

Hackaday is fun!

Quoted: I've always wanted to build my own...  Here's something that will be a bit overkill for your needs, but looks fun, all the same... BoBo Hackaday is fun!

That looks pretty neat.  If i had the time or the inclination i would definitely look into building it.  Unfortunately it won't work for Glock, too many trees in the way.

An 18 dB gain antenna on each end is only 21 dB of gain.  I doubt you'll punch through many trees with that low of power.  The best thing to try is to see how well it works now without the expensive antennas while the trees have no leaves.  If it doesn't work now with the default omni's, I doubt the 18 dB antennas will be strong enough when the trees get their leaves back.  If it works, then there's a chance it will work with the antennas when the leaves return.

At work, I've setup about four dozen wireless connections between buildings.  The only one I have working through trees goes through three large oak trees.  It uses about $2k worth of equipment from http://www.hyperlinktech.com/.  It uses a 30 dB gain antenna on each end with a 1W amplifier.  With cheaper 9 dB Yagi on each end, it worked about 55 minutes out of every hour when it wasn't raining and not at all when it was raining or until the leaves on the trees dried.  With the amp and larger antenna, it works about 23:55 per day.  There's still a lot of annoying downtime, but it's much better than before the upgrade.

I suggest trying to get the access points above the trees with the default antennas.  Then you won't have to buy expensive antennas or expensive cables and you don't have the huge losses caused by the extra connections.

No matter what you do, if you try to use wireless Ethernet somewhere where there is interference, it's not going to work 90 feet much less 900ft.  At work my laptop won't work even 50 feet from the access point because of the huge amount of background noise.z

I'm a bit confused...


It was my understanding that wireless access points used the "miscellaneous" frequency band.  And as such were regulated to only using up to .3 watts of power?

Quoted: I'm a bit confused... It was my understanding that wireless access points used the "miscellaneous" frequency band.  And as such were regulated to only using up to .3 watts of power?

If I remember correctly, the ISM band is limited to an EIRP of 252.2 Watts.  That means you can legally use a 1 Watt amplifier with a 24 dB gain antenna.  Because the system I was working with used 25' cables between the amp and the antenna, we could get away with 30 dB gain antennas due to the more than 6dB loss in the cabling.

Most wireless Ethernet equipment is junk and uses much less than the legal allowed transmit power.  According to the manual that came with a NetGear router I have,  it is only 0.028 Watts.  Some of the better equipment is still only 0.1 Watts.  That's one reason why wireless Ethernet is such garbage.z

Yeah the Netgear WG102 is only +18dBm in G.    That corresponds to 63mW.

Quoted: Quoted: I'm a bit confused... It was my understanding that wireless access points used the "miscellaneous" frequency band.  And as such were regulated to only using up to .3 watts of power? If I remember correctly, the ISM band is limited to an EIRP of 252.2 Watts.  That means you can legally use a 1 Watt amplifier with a 24 dB gain antenna.  Because the system I was working with used 25' cables between the amp and the antenna, we could get away with 30 dB gain antennas due to the more than 6dB loss in the cabling. Most wireless Ethernet equipment is junk and uses much less than the legal allowed transmit power.  According to the manual that came with a NetGear router I have,  it is only 0.028 Watts.  Some of the better equipment is still only 0.1 Watts.  That's one reason why wireless Ethernet is such garbage.z

Looks like netgear makes an Amp.    ME103BDL1NA.   That is a kit with the Amp and the wireleess access point.   Add a 18 dBi antenna @ $170 now we are up to $470.    One on each end and we have $1k.    Kinda expensive for home internet.  

Quoted: Quoted: I'm a bit confused... It was my understanding that wireless access points used the "miscellaneous" frequency band.  And as such were regulated to only using up to .3 watts of power? If I remember correctly, the ISM band is limited to an EIRP of 252.2 Watts.  That means you can legally use a 1 Watt amplifier with a 24 dB gain antenna.  Because the system I was working with used 25' cables between the amp and the antenna, we could get away with 30 dB gain antennas due to the more than 6dB loss in the cabling. Most wireless Ethernet equipment is junk and uses much less than the legal allowed transmit power.  According to the manual that came with a NetGear router I have,  it is only 0.028 Watts.  Some of the better equipment is still only 0.1 Watts.  That's one reason why wireless Ethernet is such garbage.z

Mr. Stupid checks in...

What would be involved, costwise, in running 900' of wire?

Quoted: Mr. Stupid checks in... What would be involved, costwise, in running 900' of wire?

You would need about three repeaters.

Ethernet

100BASE-TX Ethernet Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable Maximum and Minimum Length Requirements
Last updated: 6/17/2001
Q. What are the maximum and minimum cable lengths allowed for a 100BASE-TX unshielded, twisted-pair (UTP) Ethernet?

A.  Here are some basic 100BASE-TX horizontal distance requirements (the are called guidelines in the specification):

Total distance between an Ethernet Transmitter and Receiver at the absolute end points of the network (maximum diameter from origin to final destination, if the wires were stretched out to form a straight line): 100 Meters (328 ft., 109 yds., or about the length of a football field).  This limitation results from the timing of the Ethernet signals on the cable and not necessarily the cable characteristics, and is, therefore, a "hard" number.
Excluding patch cables, cross connects, etc., the maximum horizontal cable distance shall be 90 meters (295 ft.).  They are referring to the run from the patch panel to the wall jack with solid core cable.
Cross-connect jumpers and patch cords in the cross connect should not exceed 6 meters (20 ft.).
3 meters (9.8 ft.) has been allowed for patch cords from the wall jack to the work area/PC.  One could probably make these cables longer if the total length between Ethernet devices does not exceed 100 Meters.  I would not make patch cables with stranded cable longer than 20 feet.
10 meters (33 ft.) is allowed for the total length of patch cords and cross connect jumpers in a horizontal channel.  Cross connect cables are patch panel cables.
I can find no minimum length in the chunk of the specifications I have for 100BASE-TX cable.  I read one Internet source that said it was .5 meters (1.6 ft.).  I have read others that said there was no limit.  I have a 2-foot crossover cable that works fine.  There are loopback plugs that have almost no length.  I would tend to make such a cable at least two feet long to permit some noise attenuation by the twisted pairs.  However, RJ-45 plugs are cheap and one could experiment for a modest cost.