Bridging two buildings on oposite sides of a street

[sc_lover]

I live on a farm sort of in the middle of no where, and recently the possibility of Wireless Broadband has risen, so without haste we tried to get it.

But sadly the guy couldn't get a good enough signal from our house when he came to install it, this was confusing and frustrating since it worked when he came to survey it, and we can see the tower (its mounted on a watertower) easily, and it's kind of painful to see that my neighbors who live around .25 miles away have it!

That's disappointing, but across the street (our property is divided) there is a huge barn, much higher then the house, and we were thinking about trying to put it there. Obviously there's no guarantee it'll work there, but for now, let's just assume that it would.

The barn is maybe 100-200 ft from the house, so the obvious problem is getting that link to the house. I thought about fiber at first, since it can overcome the Ethernet length limit, and there's even a concrete "bridge" of sorts over a little creak, a convenient way under the road, and its pretty close to the house as well. But when I realized how much the cabling would cost, I scrapped that idea.

So now I've been thinking about going wireless, but I'm really not sure how to do it. I am considering buying another router for across the road, and plugging the Internet antenna into that. Then, to get the signal back across the road, I would use a hi-gain directional antenna and point it at the house. The idea being that the router could be inside the barn, shielded from everything but temperature, while the antenna would be outside.

Although I would accept anything for broadband, I don't like that idea because then I would have to rout all internet traffic through one computer. And there are many reasons as to why I don't like that. So I'm asking two questions here, one: Could the above example work (I know there are other variables, but are there any glaring errors?), and two, could I have a peer-to-peer wireless link not involving another router?

My dream setup would be an antenna that has an Ethernet jack and sends it to another antenna which also has an Ethernet jack; essentially it would be wireless Ethernet, is that possible?

Thanks a lot for even reading this, but comments and suggestions would be even better!

[johnwill]

You will need a wireless router at the barn location to broadcast the signal. You will also need a wireless bridge at the house location to receive the signal from the barn location. This is essentially your "antenna with an Ethernet jack". :) Wireless routers, even ones that have wireless bridge capability, aren't all that expensive, so this shouldn't be a major issue.

For the antennas, this would be more than sufficient for each end. [HAO14SD] Outdoor Hi-Gain 14dBi Directional Antenna Kit.

First step? Find out if the barn location will really support the reception of the signal. If so, I estimate the cost of the parts involved in the $300 ballpark to get the signal to the house.

[sc_lover]

Thanks very much for the response, but couldn't I pair this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833156159
with this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833980006
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16833164156?

[sc_lover]

By the way, I'm using a D-Link DI-524 for my main router.

[sc_lover]

One final thing; why do you need two high-gain antennas, wouldn't one pointed at the router be enough?

[johnwill]

You want high gain in both directions for the best results.

I presume your idea is to put the AP in the barn and direct the signal to the D-Link router in the main house? No reason that shouldn't work. Those antennas don't have the gain of the other ones, but I suspect they should be more than sufficient for a couple hundred feet. Note that you're going to need additional signal for bad weather, and I STRONGLY recommend that the antennas have clear line of sight with no obstructions of any kind for reliable operation.

[sc_lover]

Wow, it's people like you that give me hope for humanity :) But yeah, that was the plan, and I can have it setup so it has to go through a pane of glass and that's it.

It's really more like 120ft then 200ft, with clear LOS (besides the glass), so I'm really hoping that the 9dBi antenna would be sufficient, and I'm sorry to be so noobish, but when you say "best results" do you mean I could probably get away with just one? That would be better anyway since I'd like to have WiFi in my house too.

Thanks!

[sc_lover]

Sorry for all the double/triple posts, but I thought of something else. What if I bought a router with two antennas, put a directional antenna on one, and left the other one omni, would that equal good reception and an actual area-WiFi?

[johnwill]

Actually, I don't really know what effect a router with dual antennas would have with dissimilar antennas, and I'm not that eager to find out.

I think you can start with a single directional antenna at the barn and see how it goes, if you need more, then add the extra AP and antenna in the house. If you want WiFi from the barn in the house, the router will have to be in the barn to provide the multiple machine access to the ISP. You can also configure other equipment to have wireless locally, even if it's not strong enough to be used directly.

I've sent 802.11b signals about 3/4 of a mile with a pair of Cantenna directional antennas and standard Linksys wireless equipment. It worked fine in good weather, but was spotty when you had any rain.

[sc_lover]

I can't thank you enough John, I'll see if my ISP is willing to mount it on the barn, then proceed if possible. Thanks.

[johnwill]

Let us know how you make out.

[sc_lover]

Hmm, it seems after all of this I probably won't be putting it on the barn, if anywhere :( I've got a new problem though, and I'll have a thread up soon.

[johnwill]

What happened?

[sc_lover]

Well, he won't want to put it on the barn himself (it's a small business and he pretty much just does houses with a regular ladder), so I e-mailed him asking if he would loan/sell us the equipment so that we could put it wherever, that was like two weeks ago. He has since e-mailed back saying he's extremely busy (installing other people's broadband :) and that he will "address the possible situation soon", so, I'm guessing he's just going to write a detailed "No", but then again, I'm a pessimist so maybe there's hope.

[johnwill]

OK, too bad...

[sc_lover]

Yeah I know *cries softly* :(