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Getting internet from a mile away on a remote ranch.

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My system has the same basic stuff you mentioned and it never does the auto reset function. Hence the occasional drive over to the windmill tower to reset the two units.

We also have the outputs set for maximum power and all four units have been in service for over a year continuous. As for the boxes I simply took apart the routers and mounted the circuit boards in a 6 x 6 x 4 commercial plastic electrical box I bought at Menard's for about $20. All thats sticking out is the antennae connectors and the power cord and they come out the bottom so rain cant collect on them.
The box cover is gasket-ed and the antennae connections are silicon ed so its weather tight and has never had any heat issues so far. The internal box volume is more than enough for passive cooling to work even with 105 degree F heat and in direct sunlight. I have had nor over cooling problems even at - 40 F either.

I didn't know about the not needing a server computer in order to make the land to wireless link.
 
I hooked up my neighbor to my wifi router one fall... he was too cheap to get high speed, and bellsuck's switch was full. I used the easy antenna plans from this site

www.freeantennas.com

You could download a pattern to print out so the reflector was the correct distance and shape. Glue some tinfoil on a piece of cardboard and viola! I put a small linksys bridge in his window on the top floor and put a reflector on that as well. Worked pretty good until spring when the leaves came back. It was an interesting learning experience but prone to dropped packets (rain,snow,fading etc) and constant recycling of the router (i've since flashed the router with DD and it is fantastic!) and then I got bored and told him to get high speed. :D

BTW.. the distance was about 500 meters on a 80mw bridge. There are other more powerful cards I could've used... at the time they went to 240mw.

So short story long... for something to be used in extreme conditions like TCM a nice weatherproof box but for what i had, two windows with half-way decent line of sight, parabolic reflectors are all you need.
 
Yes, I may actually be able to do this without any bought materials, I know I have some spare wireless routers, and in the barn he has two of those dishes, wood, sheet metal and such. I'll just do my research before next time I go down there. I've setup plenty of wireless networks where there was no server, just a switch. But this might be a little different. It would go

Modem->Wireless router -> Dish -> Dish ->wireless router(and possibly a switch)->Cat5 cables -> computers.

I havent done that before, but i think if i give the wireless routers static IP adresses it should work fine. I'll have to read up on wireless some more to figure out all the pitfalls. I know you need a static IP to connect a switch to another switch, but I've never done that with a wireless connection in the middle.
 
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Yes, I may actually be able to do this without any bought materials, I know I have some spare wireless routers, and in the barn he has two of those dishes, wood, sheet metal and such. I'll just do my research before next time I go down there. I've setup plenty of wireless networks where there was no server, just a switch. But this might be a little different. It would go

Modem->Wireless router -> Dish -> Dish ->wireless router(and possibly a switch)->Cat5 cables -> computers.

I havent done that before, but i think if i give the wireless routers static IP adresses it should work fine. I'll have to read up on wireless some more to figure out all the pitfalls. I know you need a static IP to connect a switch to another switch, but I've never done that with a wireless connection in the middle.

Your wireless routers have to support their versions of WDS, bridging, repeatig, whatever to communicate. If they do, it would be best of they were both the same model for compatibility. Some configurations will drop the speed in half. Since it appears you are going all wired inside, speed won't matter because your internet speed won't exceed your wireless speed.

Your best bet is to look at the routers to see which ones support the same third-party firmware, such as DD-WRT. DD-WRT has a compatibility search **broken link removed**.

To hook up the switch to your router, just use a crossover cable from the router LAN port to one of the switch's ports. It doesn't have to be a managed switch -- a dummy switch will work just fine. Some newer switches support auto-mdix in which is senses it's a switch and crosses internally for you -- a straight through patch cable will work just fine -- no crossover needed.

If you are going the sat dish route, engadget has a good write up here to make a biquad dish antenna. Your measurements when you are making the antenna have to be near exact to get in the 2.4 GHz range and for reliability. Search youtube for AmateurLogic.TV and you will find some good videos by them on making your own antennas (episode 3 and 4 are probably what you are looking for). Those two episodes explain a lot of the principles. Also youtube has some good videos on making the dish antenna.

You can get some connectors from **broken link removed**. I don't know the quality or the ohms rating, but for cheap crap it is a good site. It takes about 2-3 weeks to get it from China.

Whatever you decide to do, you might post back some pictures and info of your experiences. I am interested to see how it turns out and may help others down the line with similar situations. Best of luck.
 
My system has the same basic stuff you mentioned and it never does the auto reset function. Hence the occasional drive over to the windmill tower to reset the two units.

Not sure what third-party firmware you are running, but if it has cron jobs available -- set it to reboot once or twice a day during off peak hours, if it allows it. Or move to DD-WRT if you aren't running it ;) I used to run Sveasoft back in the day but moved to DD-WRT and haven't looked back. A lot of people run Tomato too.

Glad to hear that heat/cold isn't an issue with you. I haven't ever stuck a wireless router out in the elements. It has always been in a climate controlled environment.

*I have another post for Triode once it makes it past moderation
 
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All of the reading and research my brother and I did said the same thing about heat and cold. My electronics experience said other wise. :D

We proved it works! No point in nit picking the what if's and maybes until they actually become Oh No's!;)
So far this last year I have done speed tests between our two places in blinding snow storms, 2 inch an hour down pours and dense fog. Never dropped below 50 meg a second computer to computer! Local internet provider drops outs and lockups are far more common though.:(

Plus if you know where to stand on our property you can have full high speed wireless Internet access with a laptop while standing out in the middle of a pasture thats down in a valley that hardly gets workable cell phone service!:p
 
All of the reading and research my brother and I did said the same thing about heat and cold. My electronics experience said other wise. :D

We proved it works! No point in nit picking the what if's and maybes until they actually become Oh No's!;)

I have no experience in electronics building, but have always had an interest since I was a kid. I am glad google lead me to this site. I look forward to looking through everything and learning.
 
I have no experience in electronics building, but have always had an interest since I was a kid. I am glad google lead me to this site. I look forward to looking through everything and learning.

Welcome to the what ever we are! :confused:This is a very informative site. I like it!
Maybe you could give use a short hello in the chat area! Now that you have your 3 post minimum out of the way! ;)
 
Welcome to the what ever we are! This is a very informative site. I like it!
Maybe you could give use a short hello in the chat area! Now that you have your 3 post minimum out of the way!

Welcome! Your first post was a dosie! I'm going to print it ou and save it. There is alot of good information in there.
 
Yea no kidding! I hope he sticks around and helps out and doesnt go nutter, troll, or -Ophile on us!
 
One of those ultra purist nuts like a audiophile or linuxophile, uCophile, envirophile, or pedophile. :eek::(
The ones that have an unhealthy love or fixation of or on something to the point its sick.:(
 
you can get linux router software for free, some of it will even work reasonably well on an old 486 with 8 megs of RAM and a 100 meg hard drive. i built a linux router that was in a P1/133 machine the size of a VCR, and ran it for a few years 24/7 with an ISDN card and a wireless hub.
 
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