Wireless LAN 1 mile radius

[Mogul]

I live less than a mile from my office and I was wondering if anyone has been able to successfully connect to their Wireless B/G network within a mile radius? My plan is to move my laptop between home and work and not have to plug into my work network (which is currently not allowed). Any suggestions/solutions would be greatly appreciated! My setup is a Linksys Wireless - G Broadband Router model # WRT54G and a Linksys Wireless - G Notebook Adapter model # WPC54G. My broadband connection is cable internet at home. Thanks in advanced for the help.

[confus-ed]

Welcome to windrivers Mogul :)

Wireless b & g networks are designed to give roughly 300 meters coverage maximum, as far as I understand it that's a physical limitation of how far & strong the transmitters are allowed to be on those radio ranges, else their signals are too 'loud' and can cause interferance on other ranges of operation ...

Now if you had clear line of sight I might suggest you have a go with one of those big signal boosters you can buy certainly for class B networks, (if I googled enough I'm sure there is such a thing now for g class) ... I've had up to 1.2 km with these, but thats on a farm, using the highest point as a broadcast base, with a few blades of grass in the way, in a city I think you are gonna be hard pushed to get your 300m !

Here I think no chance to fat chance :Dcertainly with this kit, its not designed for long distances, but for use inside a building

[Mogul]

Welcome to windrivers Mogul :)

Welcome back you mean :grin: It's been a while but I'm back!

Wireless b & g networks are designed to give roughly 300 meters coverage maximum, as far as I understand it that's a physical limitation of how far & strong the transmitters are allowed to be on those radio ranges, else their signals are too 'loud' and can cause interferance on other ranges of operation ...

Now if you had clear line of sight I might suggest you have a go with one of those big signal boosters you can buy certainly for class B networks, (if I googled enough I'm sure there is such a thing now for g class) ... I've had up to 1.2 km with these, but thats on a farm, using the highest point as a broadcast base, with a few blades of grass in the way, in a city I think you are gonna be hard pushed to get your 300m !

Here I think no chance to fat chance :Dcertainly with this kit, its not designed for long distances, but for use inside a building


I was looking at the Hawking Technologies web site and they have this (http://www.hawkingtech.com/prodSpec.php?ProdID=157) antenna. It claims wireless range of up to a mile and a half! Has anyone had any experience with this set up? Confus-ed brought up a point I failed to mention. My line of site is pretty decent. There's a couple of buildings in my direct view but maybe there is a receiver antenna I could set up at my work site? Like maybe on my desk?

[confus-ed]

Are you someone I forgot ? .... obviously :D, so welcome back then :thumbs:

I think the only way to find out is to try, there are a lot of variables here that its impossible for any outsider to judge, as the other thing you don't mention is interferance ! Which I'm sure is gonna be 'measurable' at least in a city...

If I were you I'd just buy one from whoever you can who has one of those 'no-quibble' returns policies ... & try the damn thing ;)

Don't fall off the roof trying to mount it as high as you can :D

[Gollo]

First off like mentioned you need LOS (line of sight). You don't have it then your mileage may vary. Second you probably wont need a signal booster (as if you were to boost the signal you might go over the allowed broadcast and then you'd be looking at fines from the FCC. This can be avoided though by using two directional antennas. One at home pointing at work and one at work pointing to the antenna at home. Both of these antennas would have to be outside but keep in mind that if you have a long coaxial run your looking at a lot of signal loss.

So in short: What you want to do is not going to happen. Period.
To get what you want to do working you'd need to spend $300-$500 bucks on equipment (2 antennas, mounting hardware, cable and 2 additional aps because if you were to put a directional antenna on your current ap(s) it would reneder them usesless for local use). Cheers.

[Stalemate]

...My plan is to move my laptop between home and work and not have to plug into my work network (which is currently not allowed)...

If you need this that badly, maybe you should look into laptop NICs that can access a cellular network (CDMA 1X comes to mind). Even at the going rates, it would still be cheaper than installing LOS equipment - and getting permissions and permits to do so. http://forums.windrivers.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Mogul]

AT&T has a plan for about $79 a month so that's probably what I'll do. Thanks for all the help!