I really need help on how to connect to city wifi

[brandon428]

I live in Cankton,la. There is a city Lafayette that has multiple towers setup that broadcast wifi. I have perfect line of sight and can see most of them at night when their lights or blinking. I am about 11 to 14 miles away from them and I need to know what I need to be able to connect to the AP. I was looking at a parabolic grid antenna that has 26 DBI. Is that enough dbi to be able to reach the AP. I heard other people from cankton have connected with less dbi antennas. I just need to know everything ill need to connect it to my home network. Thanks.

[Alan87i]

That's hard to say , 26 is about the highest gain available .
Also you might want to know the output power of the ap's . If they put out 400 MW and your card or bridge is 60 -100 MW you will hear but not send very well. Hence Poor connection. REad this post on building a wifi antenna Good info there.
http://forums.wi-fiplanet.com/showthread.php?t=6881 If it doesn't work search HARDWARE for building a wifi antenna.
Allan

[brandon428]

How do I connect my parabolic dish directly to my wifi AP? What do I need?:confused:

[Alan87i]

You will need a piece of coax with the adapter to fit the Ap and the Antenna.
Best is to use the shortest length possible. Even better would be to mount the Ap at the antenna pole and use a 2 or 3 foot jumper . I run a 12" jumper and 10 or so feet of LMR 400 coax . I live in Quebec . the temp changes so fast from day to day I was not willing to mount my AP's outside.
Now the next Ap I buy will be an outdoor model.
Allan

[brandon428]

Does it matter if I use 5ghz or 2.4? Also after I connect the ap to the antenna Is that it? I have wifi on my desktop can I then connect to the ap or am I still missing something. Thanks for the help I really want to do this because im paying 110 a month for hughesnet and the service really ****s.

[Alan87i]

You will have to ask the service provider what there Ap's are set up for . 2.4 I think would be better for a long distance then 5 GHz.
Allan

[Alan87i]

http://www.wlanparts.com/category/access_points/
This is a place to start looking for an AP and antenna. They can provide the coax and or adapters.
Allan

[M/Q]

In order to prevent you from spending too much money on something that may not work you need to do some research. There are a lot of possible challenges that need to be overcome before a link of that distance will work. It also is not a good assumption if someone else's works mine should, unless they are right next to you, physically.

Read this link, especially the SOM and Fresnel Clearance Zone calculations. Call the WISP and see what their operating parameters are, then determine what you need to do in order to have the best chance of making a viable link. As for the SOM, you need a margin of at least 25dB in order to have a decent link.

Next the Fresnel Clearance is also very important, you may see the lights but I doubt the WISP antennas are at the top, that is a premium location and usually taken by other businesses or .govs. Also if there is a large physical object in between that encroaches into the Fresnel Clearance Zone then you are in trouble as well.

http://www.terabeam.com/support/calculations/index.php

So, I would highly recommend checking these things out before spending any money, as it will give you a feel of if it is possible as well as providing answers as to what the equipment parameters will be.

[brandon428]

The wifi on the towers can reach 9-11 miles away.

[brandon428]

Would this antenna be better http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?productid=2874&cat=268&page=1

What equipment would I need to pull this off. The guy thats getting a signal is further away from the towers than I am but I don't know what equipment he uses. If I need I can get a 32 dbi parabolic 5ghz dish.

[brandon428]

Also I believe the WISP antennas are at the top because its metro wifi built by and for the city.

[brandon428]

Fresnel Zone Radius (r) 77.12

80% of Fresnel Zone Radius (r) 61.7

What exactly does that mean?

[brandon428]

I found out there using outdoor-optimized Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells.

[M/Q]

OK, I guess I need to explain a few things better.

The towers being that far away make this link a bit more difficult and sensitive to any kind of problem. The Tropos may be able to reach you but you then have to have a signal that reaches back.

That antenna you mentioned is for 802.11a, most Tropos equipment I have seen uses 802.11b/g, so it would not work.

I see you asked about this on a different thread, hopefully they will respond as they have first hand experience with this network.

[brandon428]

Thanks for all the help and the heads up on the parabolic dish being a instead of b\g.