need help Connecting to a city-wide 802.11b network

[z50z50z50]

First of all im glad to have found you guys, this is an awsome message board.
Now for my question, my city goverment in Lafayette LA has set-up a network of 12 wifi access points mounted on microwave towers about 200-250 feet high around town to create a city-wide wireless internet network free of charge, I live about a mile from the nearest tower, i was wondering if you guys could reccomend a set-up i could setup permanantly to get on this network.......now for details.....outside my window with my usb cheapo walmart blitzz wifi adapter i can see the network (called WAVECLOUD) however i dont think it can see me as i never get an IP number assigned except for one freak time....i dont have a direct line of sight, but have near line of sight to the tower.....i was looking at getting a demarc 200mw card and a patch panel antenna with 8db of gain and aim it in the general direction of the tower.........btw my obstructions include a house and or a stand of trees. Thanks Joshua

[M/Q]

Welcome to the forum. I have a few questions to ask and they will help decide which approach to take. Do you have the ability to lets say roof mount an antenna and or device to get clear line of sight to the tower? It will be very important to somehow achieve this, otherwise there will no possibility of a stable system. Second are you financially able to spend up to about $400 US, if not what is your limit? If you can find away to do both of these and the fact that you are almost getting a link with the USB adaptor will pretty much guarantee that this project is possible. But I need to know what you think about this before proceeding.

What you described may or may not work. I would hate to see you spend that kind of money on something that iffy.

[z50z50z50]

400 dollars dosent sound to bad, roof mounting though is a no, no in my neiborhood, and even roof mounting willstill have the ubstruction of trees behind my house however. About the best i can do is mount the antenae on a pole going about 2 feet above the trim around my house, would using an omni directional antenae be my best effort solution, or would i still want something more or less directional?

[M/Q]

OK, I know what to work with. I am a little concerned about the interferences. I would hate to have you set all this up and still not get a acceptable link. But I guess that will be up to you. Since you are fighting interferences you will need the most antenna gain possible to stack the deck in your favor. I will setup the optimum system for that and you can decide if you want to do that or just parts of it.

First the determination of antenna gain. If you look at this link, especially the System Operating Margin. With most normal equipment you want to have a margin of around 25-30dB. I did a quick guesstimate of your conditions and came up with an antenna gain of at least 16dBi. Now, that was without the interferences, and very little loss due to antenna lead length.

http://www.ydi.com/calculation/som.php

Now, on the next site you need to look at antennas that exceed 16dBi. There are two types of antennas that meet that spec. There are panel antennas and parabolic dishes. Personally if you can mount it, I would get the highest gain parabolic dish I could. Just to be safe, that will give you 24dBi gain from just the antenna. Next at the same website, you look at the pigtails under 5ft long. There is one listed for a N-male to RP SMA right angle. In the note is talks about being for a WET11 bridge. That is the one I am talking about.

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

Now, comes the hard part, in order for you to get the most signal to the antenna, I would suggest putting the node device with in the 5 ft of the antenna, hence the pigtail I referred to. That means an weatherproof enclosure, I have even used tupperware container for that. Also it means using POE (power over Ethernet). I am talking about LinkSys products here as an example other brands have the same devices, it is just easier to describe the system with useable pieces. POE uses 2 unused twisted pairs of the 4 in a CAT5 Ethernet cable. That way you will not have to run power out to the device outside, just one CAT5 Ethernet cable. Which in reality is even easier to run than the antenna coaxial lead as well. This device is the shown in the link below

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

Next is the device, staying with LinkSys, it is called the WET11 bridge. I am not sure what you have for a network now, but all you need to do is connect this directly to a computer or a hub if you have more than one computer and configure the node and it works.

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=36&prid=602

[z50z50z50]

The restrictions in my neighborhood would prevent a dish, a panel may work, being so close with not much of a setup , why wouldnt it work to get a 8dbi omni like on demarc s site with the 200 or 300 mw card.

[M/Q]

I have one last thing to say, as I see I am wasting my time. Did you even read my post about the System Operating Margin? If you did then the question about the 8dBi omni should not have been asked.

I also find it amusing that you think a mile is considered close. I have clients that can not get to the other side of the house let alone through a house and some trees and the to a tower a mile away.

You seem to have it figured out so best of luck.

[z50z50z50]

What i an telling you is that deed restrictions prevent me from having a dish or anything that could be construed as a dish, nor a panel if it is visible from the street, whips are allowed if less than 3 feet, i am sorry you feel im wasting your time.

[M/Q]

The type of antenna is not as important as the gain achieved by that antenna. Again, I stated that you need at least 16dBi. Why would I say a 8dBi antenna was good enough? An vertical is probably the worst possible antenna you could use. You are trying to link with a specific node, not spread the signal in a 360 deg circle. Again check out the link to the System Operating Margin. I am not making this stuff up.

A panel or dish on the side of your house pointed at the tower would be better than that.

As for wasting my time, it is frustrating when you mention something specific and it is ignored. There are several professionals on this forum that give their time gladly, we just want it to be used to good advantage.

[z50z50z50]

how about this antenae
http://www.demarctech.com/products/reliawave-antennas/SPFPG18.html
link (http://www.demarctech.com/products/reliawave-antennas/SPFPG18.html)

and this card
link (http://www.demarctech.com/products/reliawave-rwz/reliawave-rwz-200mw-prism2-5-pcmcia-card.html)

and the appropriate connectors

passing only through vegetation, as i found a place i can see the tower through the trees.

I really truly appreciate your time, as im no expert at this. Thanks a million

[M/Q]

The antenna is fine, that is what I was referring to. The card I have never used, my associates have never used and I guess that means I will not recommend it. Engenius has a 200mw 11b card with the same MMCX connector that I would recommend.

Now we get to why I did not want you to go this route. I am not sure how long of an antenna lead you are thinking about, but take a look at this link as it is better proof than just listening to me. A 24in coaxial LMR100 lead has 2db of loss, each connector generally adds .5dB. So now you have 3db loss in just 2ft of cable. That 3db is equivalent of taking your 200mw and cutting it down to 100mw. That small cable required to connect to the pc card is not recommended for microwave frequencies. You go back to the System Operating Margin and it gets a little scary, depending on how long you are intending the antenna lead in to be. For instance if you are thinking about 6ft that means 1db for the connectors and 6db for the cable=7db. That gives you a minimal margin, without considering the trees. You also have to consider that your bandwidth is dependent on the signal strength.

I guess it will be your call. If the card has a high occurrence of drops, you could add a bridge as I suggested and run it to an AP inside and still use the card in the computer. Also those little MC and MMCX connectors are very notorious for having problems and bad connections. So if you use this approach be very careful with them.

http://www.netnimble.net/lmr100.html

[z50z50z50]

I will wing it, in my house i recieve a low signal on my ap browser and outside it usually is 60-70 % so getting the signal is not the problem its getting the tower to hear my signal, i an ordering tomorrow and will let you all know how it goes.

[z50z50z50]

Bought this and i can get on easy with nearly 100% signal and speedtest averaging 2.5 / 3 megs downloading, ironically i could see another one of the wavecloud towers and about 6 other access points so needless to say im impressed, ill try to post pictures of my install later this week, but i easily mounted it to a pvc pipe mounted to my house, working like a charm, if only all cities would imploment such a service






http://www.demarctech.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=84&osCsid=a914d98a330fc89be537aba4f2ddd59e

[M/Q]

Good for you, I would have suggested a similar device, if I knew you where serious about it. It was what I was trying to do, but on the cheap with individual components.

That style of device is the ultimate for outdoor as it eliminates all the problems I was mentioning. The brand I have used in the past is called SmartBridges. They have total devices like that , but are a little more money so it is good to know about yours.

[adrinef]

where are the towers located in town?

[z50z50z50]

1.Ambasador @ Johnston (red and white Tower behind Best Buy) 2. Ambassador @ Kaliste Saloom (Behind Albertsons) 3.Bonin Power Plant 4. Downtown on Bank One Building? 5.HWY90 @ Southpark DR. 6. Near Airport 7.East Bayou PKWY @ Boat Landing 8. LEDA Industrial Park near CINGULAR Call Center 9. Breaux Bridge Highway near parish line 10.Next to Blackham Collesium 11. University @ Pinhook (power plant near Gen. Mouton) 12. Evangaline THRWY power substation...................Told 7 more will be online by july ( towers can each cover a 5-7 mile radius and tapped into the LUS FDDI loop , speed test have gotten me as high as 3.17 mbps at dsl reports.

[adrinef]

did you map them out yourself or did someone tell you where they were ..i can connect at a few places around town usually get an ip address of
10.*.*.* i get a different network depending on which part of town i'm in. i live out of town, and i'm thinking of getting a high db gain ant. to put on a pole to see if i could shoot it in.. because running kismet i can pick up wavecloud out of town. i'm out toward the cankton area. which way or tower would you think would be closed to ?

[z50z50z50]

They are using all of LUS's old microwave towers around lafayette once used for their power grid management. The closest to you would be the one near the LEDA park or the one at the main Bonin power plant. With an off the shelf usb adapter i can connect from over a mile away, with mediocre throughput 300-400k with my permanant install approx. 1.3 miles im getting 1.1-2.0 mbps average. They alternate on channels 1 and 6 to allow roaming hand-offs. They want to try and put a mobile system in the Lafayette PD patrol cars, and for mardi gras several used pda's tied into the wavecloud system to do outstanding warrant checks on the people arrested . They really seem to have high hopes for this network, and want to keep it free and public. They have pretty much the whole city covered.

[adrinef]

how did you set it up? did you use it as a bridge? did you have to input the mac address of wavecloud. or did it find it and you told it to connect to it.?

[z50z50z50]

yes i use a demarc technology 100mw bridge with a web based CP. I just lock into the wavecloud SSID and wham im on, have remained on consitently now for about 10 days with varying throughput rates.

[adrinef]

so basically what your saying is you got the mac addr. of wavecloud. then imput it into your web based config of the bridge and your on? is it a router also?
here's my situation. i live pretty far out of town. i bought a 5db ant. from fab-corp.com for wardriving, while riding around where i live at certain places while running kismet it will pick up wavecloud. so i figured with a large db gain ant. i should be able to pick it up. so bought this antenna a "24 dBi Die Cast Directional Antenna" from htp://www.fab-corp.com/ . i only put the ant. maybe 15 to 20 feet off the ground, cause i only bought 25 ft cable.I have it directly connected to my laptop with an orinoco card. i can't detect it with netstumbler or windows wireless. but if i run kismet i can pick up two to three different wavecloud access points. also while running windows, and running airopeek nx i can pick up wavecloud and a few others. and pickup packets. now what i'm thinking is they are running enough power to reach me but i'm not pushing enough to reach them back. so what i was going to do is put antenna higher in the air, and also hook it up to wap11 and make a bridge with it, but i need some help in doing it. i was thinking that the wap11 is pushing more power than the orinoco card so maybe that would work.(also i read that there is a power hack for the wap11) or do you think i need a setup like you have? also if anyone experienced with wap11.. if i was to set it up as a bridge, i would put it as point to multipoint because there not running linksys on their side right? also do i set the ip address of the access point or do i let it give me one through dhcp and also can i go straight into the router or do i go into a switch or what? i know its alot of information and lots of questions. sorry. any information is helpful
thanks

[adrinef]

or what about hooking an amplifier up to my existing setup?

[M/Q]

I would be curious to know what kind of coaxial able you are running to the antenna. It is notorious for loss and you maybe lossing most of your signal through that.

The WAP will setup as a bridge as you suggested.

[adrinef]

i'm using lmr-400

[M/Q]

I suspect that your problem is similar to what I was trying to get at in the first poster's situation. You are losing quite a bit of signal through the coax. He eventually purchased an outdoor unit that has virtually no lead loss. At microwave frequencies the loss through cable is quite a bit. If you are using about 25 ft, that means approxiamtely 2db of loss. At 3dB you lose half of your power. I was curious if you would be able to try the link with a short piece of coax and see if that made a difference.

Also, no disservice intended here, but did you make the cable? I have had trouble on several occasions when I have made LMR400 cables and it caused all sorts of issues until I redid the crimp connectors. It might be that as well.

[adrinef]

i bought the cables already made from fab-corp. it will be really hard to do but i will try. i will disconnect the 25ft cable, but i will have to bring my laptop on the roof of my shed which has a pretty good angle and also i will probably have to hold up the laptop into the air enough to get close enough to the ant. but if works then i know that it is signal loss right? then i should just be able to get an outdoor bridge and put it up there with my existing ant.? or an amplifier ? i would hate to have to buy another ant.

[M/Q]

Sorry, but that is about the only good way to test it. The antenna is a great one, that is about as good as it gets. You are correct, that if the signal improves then you have a few options to move the node closer to the antenna.

[adrinef]

do you know what the power output of a orinoco card is opposed that of a wap11? do you have any experience with the wap11?

[z50z50z50]

the setup i bought is ideal,but how far out of town are you? The set-up they are using has a pure line of sight range of 9-11 miles from what one of the engineers told me and a NLOS of 3 miles, however i can link (170kbps throughput on speed test) to the wavecloud tower near the mall from my house with zero line of sight and about 3.5 miles away and see atleast 3 more wavecloud towers around town among other private networks so results will vary. Can you see any of the towers from the roof of your shed. ????

BTW I think it is so cool what Lafayette Utility Systems has done emplementing this as a free community service.

[adrinef]

i'm out toward the cankton area, at night is the best time for me to look for towers. i can see about 3 or 4 towers toward the lafayette area because of the tower lights. i just need to figure out exactly which one is wavecloud. how far are you from the mall?

[z50z50z50]

Im near comeaux high school so the tower i connect to is behind the albersons on ambassador caffery@ kaliste saloom, i can connect to the mall tower with no problemabout 3 miles away with zero line of sight, just a slow link though, i can see and sometimes connect to other Wavecloud towers around town. The nearest tower to you would be at the power plant, it is on a tower on top of the plant it self about 250' above ground level. its mac address is 000D9701132D so see if you can see it, btw im not familiar with the utilities you are using to sniff for wifi.

[adrinef]

these are the Wavecloud Ap macs i pick up.

00:0D:01:12:FC
00:0D:01:13:2D

[z50z50z50]

you see the power plant and i beleive the Leda industrial park site then, the power plant would be your best bet.

[brandon428]

Is the wifi still up? I live in cankton and is desperate for Broadband. I have hughesnet right now but it ****s. What equipment do I need I can see 4 towers at night.

[adrinef]

Where exactly do you live? there is a company that offers wireless in the area depending on where your at.