questions about my first wireless P2P setup

T

timreichhart

Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
928
Hey Guys
I got a question about my first wireless point 2 point setup my question is from my picture is that the correct way of doing that?

aka802.jpg
 
You might want to describe what you are trying to accomplish, and then we can figure out the best set-up.

First of all, you should connect the access point on the right with the router on the right with an ethernet cable. I have no idea what connecting the antenna posts directly would do, but I imagine it would burn out the radios.

Also, you have two routers. Do each of these have an internet connection? If not you shouldn't need a router on both ends. Also depending on what you're doing, you might not need a router and an access point on the other side either.
 
ok what I am trying to do is share internet connection from shop to a house that is what I am trying to accomplish here.

the router on the left already have internet connection.

the access point on the right will be on the house then that connection will be feeding the connection from the shop into the house where a other wireless router will be so the laptop can pick up the wireless coming from the shop.
 
What's the distance involved? Clear line of sight? Outdoor antennas with indoor APs I assume is your plan?
 
the distance is only 100 feet away. im going to use outdoor antennas with indoor ap's and also its clear line of sight.
 
timreichhart said:
the distance is only 100 feet away. im going to use outdoor antennas with indoor ap's and also its clear line of sight.
Click to expand...

Should be pretty easy then. Your plan will work fine, you may only need a directional antenna at the remote end connecting to your existing wireless network (assuming you have one), the distance is short enough that this is probably possible. Then just set it up as a bridge to a switch/wireless AP at the remote side.

You may also consider the Ubiquiti hardware (NanoStation Loco). It's pretty ridiculously cheap, small, safe for mounting outdoors and does everything you need with a single Ethernet cable going outside. Ethernet cable is not really rated for outdoor use, but if it's a short distance (or you could put it behind a window or such) and for home use I wouldn't bother with the expensive gel-filled stuff. Probably wind up being cheaper than an AP and antenna and long enough RF cable, and a simpler setup too.
 
can I set linksys WAP54G as a bridge on the remote side then? also on the nanostation loco how does that work?
 
timreichhart said:
can I set linksys WAP54G as a bridge on the remote side then? also on the nanostation loco how does that work?
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I think so yeah, though when I use those I always wipe the stock firmware and put dd-wrt or Tomato on, which can definitely do it.

The NanoStation Loco is similar hardware wise to a standard router/AP, but includes an 8dBi directional antenna, outdoor enclosure and is powered by PoE, eliminating a lot of the complications of acquiring all this stuff separately. The firmware it ships with is also well set-up for doing this kind of thing (being designed for Wireless ISP deployments, this is exactly the job they're made to do). They're also quite cheap at $50 if you're planning on buying hardware anyway, even a PoE injector is included. A pair of these should do the job excellently. Some of their other products are interesting as well. Adding a Bullet2 to a high gain panel antenna at your remote end should get you up and running great as well I'd think, without having to change anything at the main site.
 
skip the linksys with outdoor antenna, use Engenius

http://www.wirelessnetworkproducts.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2021

i have used that one a few weeks back to bridge an garage office (internet connection) to the main house about 50-100ft away through normal yard brush and it worksed great (WRT54GL with Tomato as router in garage, going to that unit linked, on the house side another one of hte linked units in WDS bridged plugged into a Engenius Wireless N access point, covered the entire houses/yard) and the other engenius bridges with great result and so easy to configure.

dirt cheap come with POE injector.

run a cat5e from main router to a window or outside, mount this unit there, mount another one on destination side, hook up another WRT54GL or whatever wirelss router on other side in AP mode so you got some ports.
 
ubiquiti stuff is also nice like mentioned, haven't used it since my reseller HDCom always recommends engenius due to the fact that they are more powerfull internal antenna (generally 600mw for the larger units).
 
so marley1 your telling get Engenius equipment like you posted then just run cat5 from that Client Bridge into my linksys router on both sides (shop and house) correct? or can you draw up a picture what your talking about?
 
cable modem/dsl -----> wireless router for house (192.168.1.1) ------> cat5 to location planning to mount outdoor bridge unit (192.168.1.2) (these even have suction cups for windows, outdoor rated, weatherproof)

lawn

2nd bridge unit (192.168.1.3) --------> wireless router configured in Access point mode (192.168.1.4)

So....

192.168.1.1 - setup your SSID and Security, pick a channel say 1, 6, or 11
192.168.1.2 - copy down the mac address under status
192.168.1.3 - copy down the mac address
192.168.1.4 - setup your SSID, security and different channel then 192.168.1.1 (so if you pick channel 11 on 192.168.1.1 pick chan 6 here)

log into 192.168.1.2 - go to IP Settings, select WDS Bridge, type in the mac address from 192.168.1.3
log into 192.168.1.3 - select WDS Bridge and type inmac addres from 192.168.1.2

now should be able to connect to one of them and ping your way through.

the engenius come with poe injector that you need to use.

pretty much cable goes from router to lan port in injector, cat5 runs from poe port on injector to bridge
 
so I would need 2 of these engenius units then correct? because the units needs to be mounted outside on the shop and the house.
 
timreichhart said:
so I would need 2 of these engenius units then correct? because the units needs to be mounted outside on the shop and the house.
Click to expand...

Probably the best way to do it, yeah. You might get away with positioning your existing AP at the house near a window or something and just firing at that, it would probably work fine, but PtP is obviously the better choice.

I've seen some Engenius indoor APs and wasn't nearly as impressed with them as I was when I set up a few APs based on the Ubiquiti gear. Either solution should work fine for you though, the capabilities are similar.
 
ok let me get this down correctly:

from shop connection with wireless router --------> out to engenius AP by cat 5.

from engenius bridge to house -------> from cat 5 into house to a other wireless router.

now can I turn off the DHCP server inside of the router that is inside of the house and just use the DHCP server coming from shop wireless router?

am I understanding this correctly?
 
I'm at a loss to why you cant just attach a high-gain antennia to one of the mini-coax on the main router, then just a high-gain antennia on the remote site unless you have some special need (tax reasons?) I see no reason for all the extra hardware. The antennias can be had for $10 or so on ebay and will not only give you the range you need but also extend your coverage in the other directions too. There are a LOT of simpler ways to do this. Unless lynksys is a LOT easier to setup than my Trendnet/Netgeat routers, your BEGGING for hell trying to resolve _4_ subnets and do anything between PCs...
 
Antenna gain comes with directionality. I wouldn't try and use an omni antenna at 100ft and expect reliable good performance, even a so called 'high gain' one, though yeah it'd probably work and you could then just use WDS, but I really don't like this option, it will be slow and probably unreliable. A single directional antenna would probably do the trick though instead of a PtP link, and then OP wants an access point at both locations, so that's 3 devices right there (one AP at each site and the directional backhaul at the remote). You don't need 4 subnets to do this, I would use a single subnet and just bridge everything.

This is why you don't use Netgear consumer routers to do this kind of job, and why paying $50 for something like the Ubiquiti gear makes sense. The cost is very little more than a bridge-mode capable router like a WRT54GL and dd-wrt and the necessary antenna, and it's integrated and designed to work like this in an outdoor environment. If OP already had the gear I'd make a different recommendation, but buying new stuff, this is the way to go.
 
keenan said:
Antenna gain comes with directionality. I wouldn't try and use an omni antenna at 100ft and expect reliable good performance, even a so called 'high gain' one, though yeah it'd probably work and you could then just use WDS, but I really don't like this option, it will be slow and probably unreliable. A single directional antenna would probably do the trick though instead of a PtP link, and then OP wants an access point at both locations, so that's 3 devices right there (one AP at each site and the directional backhaul at the remote). You don't need 4 subnets to do this, I would use a single subnet and just bridge everything.
Click to expand...

Ah, ok, I've never worked closely with larger wireless networks, mine are all short-range in one house. The only time I had a range issue was the bacement and enlarging the antennia on the dongle made it work without a hitch. (Though depending on how things go, I might end up adding one outside to the workshop, so I'll be keeping this in mind)


keenan said:
This is why you don't use Netgear consumer routers to do this kind of job, and why paying $50 for something like the Ubiquiti gear makes sense. The cost is very little more than a bridge-mode capable router like a WRT54GL and dd-wrt and the necessary antenna, and it's integrated and designed to work like this in an outdoor environment. If OP already had the gear I'd make a different recommendation, but buying new stuff, this is the way to go.
Click to expand...

I've always used Netgear and Trendnet (minus 1 D-link that lasted only a couple weeks till lightning fried it) so I had no idea the differences. Sorry for the foolish suggestion.
 
Ashton said:
Ah, ok, I've never worked closely with larger wireless networks, mine are all short-range in one house. The only time I had a range issue was the bacement and enlarging the antennia on the dongle made it work without a hitch. (Though depending on how things go, I might end up adding one outside to the workshop, so I'll be keeping this in mind)
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you think about it it's simple physics. The antenna can't add energy (it has no power supply), so the only way it can increase the signal strength is by concentrating it in a particular direction. The benchmark 'isotropic radiator' radiates evenly in all directions (expanding in a sphere); omni antennas acheive gain over this (a few dBi) by flattening the profile out (its not generally useful to fire energy up to the sky or into the ground), but that only gets you so far. For significant gain you need to focus the signal in 2 axes instead of 1 and thus add some directionality.

Your suggestion wasn't really foolish - it would probably work reasonably well - but doing it this way doesn't really cost much and should work much better.
 
the most reliable way is with a bridge, you can try antenna and all that but its not as clean as creating a wireless bridge between buildings and having an AP in each building.

i was amazed at the setup i did with the 59 buck bridge units, one mounted externally, the other one across the front yards through light trees and bushes, the other bridge unit sat behind the tv not even in the window.

great ping from the bridge across, added a Engenius 600mw Wireless N AP, coverd the house, and the entire back yard. the farthest I could get was right by the water and Speakeasy was getting close to 3500 down on the speed test.
 
I have bought 2 of them Engenius bridge/ap and I just bought me a Engenius wireless router that gots 200mw on it also.
 
which model? i haven't used their wireless routers before, only the AP and Bridge units.

I usually use a WRT54GL as the router or a RV042 and use these things after.
 
i bought Engenius ESR-1221EXT HighPower 200mW Wireless G router and i called over to hdcom and they said they didnt have any stock and they said it would take up to 3 weeks to get them in stock so I went with a other place who had them in stock. Also I got a question on that POE injector with cat5 how long of length can I go with that POE injector?
 
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