Direcway on home network

[jsw53]

I want to set up Direcway on my home network. I have two outbuildings I also want to share the Direcway connection with. One building is 420' from the Direcway dish. The other building is 150' away. Please advise the best WIRELESS setup to do this. Note: I already have a linksys router (but not wireless). Your help is appreciated.

jsw53

[M/Q]

Welcome to the forum. I have several questions to ask first, so we can make sure the advice is correct. If the home is the center of the coverage area, are the outbuildings in different directions? Or if in somewhat of the same direction, what would the angle be between the three buildings? This will be used to determine what antenna to use and if two are needed. Also what kind of use are the links going to get? File sharing and normal Internet access or are you wanting to run games or video streaming over the wireless links? Also, is this system important to keep up and are you willing to spend some money (how much) or are you wanting to go the least costful way. Need to know as it will not make sense to spend time on the wrong approach. Obviously there are issues with both methods, just need to know your thoughts.

Some other questions: Do you have clear line of sight to the outbuildings? Are there any other sources of RF in the area, that might interfere with your links? Are you able to add roof mounted systems and or antennas at all of the locations?


The links are very doable, just need to know this information before making a recommendation.

[jsw53]

Thanks for your reply. The answers to your questions are listed below:

Line of sight - Yes, There is a clear line of sight between all three buildings.

Location of buildings - The two buildings I want to send the signal to are 90 degrees apart from my main house. Picture it as if I was sending the signal across the street (in front of my house - 420' away). The other building is directly to the side of my house (about 125' away).

Nature of the link/share - I plan the link the two outbuildings to my Direcway satellite. I will no be gaming or anything like that. Just want to cruise the net.

Money - I'm am concerned about money, but want to hear what it will take to make a proper connection. I have done some research and have been advised that a good antenna to use is the Cuchcraft PC2415NA.

Hope this answers your questions. Thanks again for your help.

Regards,
Joe

[M/Q]

No luck on the angle. To explain the situation a little, the 90deg angle is going to force you to use an omni-directional antenna or two antenna/devices. I forgot to ask how many computers would be in each of the buildings? Are they notebooks or desktops, and what kind of wireless setup do you want to have in the out buildings. That will also make a difference as to how we introduce the external antennas/devices at those locations as well. If these antennas are inside the buildings, can they be in windows and will they be up high enough to see each other and not have lets say people or cars move between the signal path? The problem is, that when you move equipment outside, it gets more complicated and costly. I was wondering if you could put device in two separate windows in your house pointing at each of the out buildings and the device in each of the out buildings would be able to see the respective device in the house. See where I am going with this. That would be the ideal approach when money and keeping it simple and inside are important. The only drawback to this approach is that you will have to cable the two devices to the Internet gateway in your house.

The other option is to mount an omni-directional antenna outside of your house and have it visible to both of the out buildings. That requires a lead in and concern about losing too much signal through the antenna lead. I will let you check this out and see what option is best suited for your situation before we go any further.

[jsw53]

I plan to bring one feed to each building. Laptops will be in both buildings. I could use a switch in the outbuilding if I decide to hook up more computers there. I already have a network set up in my house 9the building that will have the Directway dish). I have no problem putting all the antennas outside. We live in the country, so this is not a problem I don't believe there are any RF problems either.
My idea on this deal was to use four of the Cushcraft PC2415NA antennas (two for each feed). The antennas would be fed off a Linksys wireless router with two removable antennas. I would use low loss cable to run from the router to the cushcrafts (mounted on the main house. I would then mount an additional Cushcraft on each building to complete the wireless link. My concern with an omni directional antenna is that the signal may be weak by the time it makes the trip. I have thought about putting one omni on the main house and using the Cushcrafts for the outbuildings. The Cushcrafts are $162.28 each at a distributer here in Texas. Your thoughts?

[M/Q]

OK, it is coming together better now. I would caution you about using the LinkSys router and both antenna leads to run separate antennas off of. That is not what it was designed for. I also would like to caution you about any length of antenna lead over 10-12 ft. At these frequencies the loss in coaxial cable is quite a bit and it does not take much to cut your power in half only 3dB. If you are interested in LinkSys, I would suggest using 4 WET11's, one at each end of the connection. That is exactly what they are meant to do. The optimum approach would be to mount those outside along with the antenna and a very short coaxial lead. You then run the CAT5 cable back into the house. One consideration is to make sure that you use two different non-interfering channels on the links like channel one and channel eleven. You can power the WET11 by POE (power over Ethernet) It actually is much better way than running a long coaxial cable. Linksys sells the POE adaptors or you can make your own.

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=38&prid=582

http://www.nycwireless.net/poe/

The only problem is an enclosure, I have even used tupperware type of containers to hold the WET11 and it worked quite well. Then all you have to do is run the CAT5 cable inside.

Next is the antenna you picked, it is a great antenna. It is expensive and maybe more than what you need for the distances. You can use it, but I just wanted to point out another option that has more gain, costs less and I use them all the time. It is a panel antenna,check out the link and go to the panel antennas. It is the 16dBi Microceptor, more gain and 1/3 the price. It is very easy to mount and does not have the overhanging loading of a yagi. Just a thought.

[jsw53]

I'm having trouble finding the panel antennas.. Are these on the nycwaireless link?

I need to understand the complete setup. Am I running from the Direcway dish to a wireless router, then to these WET11s? Will I be using four of the panel antennas...two for each link? The Direcway dish now has a modem that plugs into the WAN on the router. (I should advise you that I know enough about networking to be dangerous).

Thanks,

Joe

[M/Q]

I am sorry, I forgot the link for the antennas

http://www.fab-corp.com/

You can use the wireless router or a wired one. The wireless portion of it has no bearing on it. The WET11's will plug into the wired switch portion of the router. That will allow them to pass the Internet access through the bridge links.

You would use four of the antennas and hopefully the POE setup I mentioned as that will almost guarantee that this will work quite well.

At each of the out buildings you can connect the bridge to a hub/switch or another AP to have wireless in each of the out buildings.

[codeman14150]

I've been reading this thread and mpkn3rd, you have absolutely covered everything physically related to install. Great work!

[jsw53]

You've been a great help to me on this. I want to make sure I understand the complete setup. Here is what I think I know.

I wiil run from the Direcway modem to the WAN on the Linksys router. I will then run from 2 ports on the router to 2 WEP11's and on to the panel antennas (pointed at the outbuildings...are these cables "crossovers" going from the router to the WEP11s?)

On the outbuilding...I will run from the panel antenna to the WEP11...then cat5e (crossovers?) to the computer.

You can probably tell, I need to draw myself a picture so I can get a parts list together. Please advise. I'll be happy to call you if you would rather just tell me this stuff over the phone. Whatever is best for you.

Thanks again,

Joe

[M/Q]

You have it perfect. The WET11 has a cross over switch so you just need to use straight cables. You may have to switch it when you go from the bridge to just a computer.

Also remember to put one bridge link pair on channel one and the other bridge link pair on channel eleven. That is to prevent interference, which will cause erratic problems and lower bandwidth.

Just curious as to if you are going to have the devices use POE and be located outside or are you going to try and run antenna leads to them?

[jsw53]

I will use the POE, but I don't really understand that part. You said I can buy these adapters from Linksys? Pleas explain how they hook up to the WEP11.

Joe

[M/Q]

How they help is by eliminating the need to run power to the WET11's. If they are going to be outside on a mast, it gets hard to run 120 out there and probably against all sorts of codes. There are 2 unused twisted pairs in the CAT5 cable. The POE adaptors inject the low voltage required by the WET11 into the CAT5 cable. The end that you are going to connect to the router has to plug into the POE adaptor first. Then into the router. The power part of that POE adaptor is then plugged into the power adaptor of the WET11. Then at the WET11 end there is another POE adaptor, that reverses the process and plugs into both the power inlet of the WET11 as well as the RJ45 connector. Simple and cool, it really saves a lot of hassle running power out to remote devices.

[hmhc]

mpkn3rd...do you think the panel antenna (with the pouch) at http://www.fab-corp.com would be a good applicaton for his needs? I just purchase one but have not used it yet. Seems to have plenty of room for the WET11 and POE adaptor inside. Just a thought.

[M/Q]

That is a good possibility. I had heard that some people did not like it as it did not have enough room and the antenna pigtail was getting bent. Have you seen that? I did not seem to think it was bad in mine.

I keep forgetting about it as a good candidate. It might be a good idea to look at the ROOtenna.