Wifi connection over 0.25 mile

Question

I'm trying to connect a friend with no hope of broadband to neighbor a 0.25 of a mile away. I can get a line of sight if I put up a flag pole up approx. 30 feet. I have a Linksys WRT54GL with dd-wrt and a 2.4GHz YAGI Antenna 20 dBi around, so would like to use them if it will work.

The router will have to be inside, so I'm wonder if I have enough power to make it up the wire and out the antenna?

Also wonder if I can get away without any antenna in the receiving home (just Wifi cards in laptops)?

Can add antenna or whatever is needed, but want to keep it as low cost as possible.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Answer 1

no consumer router has that range. he's better off getting wifi anywhere package from a phone provider.

Answer 2

I believe the answer to this is exactly what you mean by "low cost?" Lower cost than just stringing cat5e cable from your house to the other one (which is at least theoretically possible to 150 meters, but 100 meters is my rule of thumb for a max cable run without repeaters)?

The "right" way to do this is to get a pair of unidirectional antennas and a wireless bridge for the other house. The wireless bridge could be something like this one: http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite... , which should pair well with your WRT54GL. You would still need a pair of unidirectional antennas.

I would first suggest you look up "cantenna" in Google to get some ideas on how to make an inexpensive unidirectional antenna.

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/canten...

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.ht...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Uni-Dire...

There are commercial versions available such as this one: http://www.smarthome.com/64011.html?src=...

The reason I believe it has to be a wireless bridge is that I think in order for this to work, you need a unidirectional antenna on both ends (pointing directly at each other). Focusing and amplifying your signal from your wireless router (a basic transceiver like a walkie-talkie or CB radio) toward your neighbor is half the issue. Focusing and amplifying their signals back to you (since they have a "walkie-talkie," too) is the other half. It doesn't do any good if they can hear you clearly if you can't hear them as well. Some of the cantenna articles seem to imply otherwise, however. It won't cost you to try doing this with only one unidirectional antenna. I just don't see it working.

This article also looked useful: http://www.ezlan.net/bridging.html

There are commercial bundled versions of all this, of course. Look at the ones found here: http://www.wirelessnetworkproducts.com/i... The interesting thing there is they are talking about a range of up to 5 miles. This is telling me it certainly can be done over the range you're talking about. The question is, "how much?"

Just a word about the WRT54GL signal distance. I've owned/used a couple of the WRT54G models (before the "L" version came out) and their distance was significantly less than Netgear models or even the newer Linksys models. I now have a Linksys WRT160N and I would estimate base on my walking-around-the-house test, that it's about twice the signal strength of the Linksys SRX 400 it replaced, which was itself stronger than the WRT54G that replaced. Bottom line is you may do better with a different wireless router.