Cable length from PCI card to antenna?

[Riktar]

I am looking to connect to my office computer which is approx. 500 feet from my residence. My home should be easy since the room that will have the wireless router is on the second floor facing the office building. I am assuning I can just place the router by the window overlooking the office building.

The office is going to be the problem since the room is in the basement which is on the far side of the building. I should note that the basement is exposed but it is still on the backside.

So I thought I would simply run the antenna up to the roof and connect it to the PCI card with a cable. via the N-connectors. I would estimate the cable length to be roughly 35 feet. Will this cause too much of a signal drop to be effective?

[leedsit]

Hi,

3coms 50foot coaxial cable ( Product #: 3CWE482 ) has a loss of 10db..... EIRP power is reduced by half ( 50% ) per 3db, so if your EIRP ( Power radiated from your antenna ) is 1 Watt, the EIRP will be 100mw ( APPROX ... ) if you introduce this cable ( this also includes the connectors in the loss ).

However you can get amplifiers to boost the signal, but ensure the equipment you purchase falls inline with FCC regs.

[Uncle Ken]

Rather than a PCI card, you could use a client bridge, such as the Linksys WET54G, for your basement PC. Then you'd be limited only by the length of the Cat5 cable (100m), without any signal loss. If your computer doesn't already have a wired NIC, adding one is trivial and dirt cheap.