Need help bridging LANs wirelessly, recommendations on antennas?

We were sick and tired of paying another $110/mo to provide cable
internet to the apartment above our garage, so I put in a bridge
system.

The cable comes into the house and is sent up to the office in the
house. This goes to a Motorola Surfboard, connected to a Linksys
WRT54G. This provides wireless in the house, as well as access to the
three wired computers connected to it. Also on the desk in the house
is a WAP54G set to Bridge mode, and another one in the apartment. Once
in the apartment, there is another Linksys router with three computers
and the WAP54G plugged into it, nothing in the uplink port.

The apartment is roughly 70 feet away across the driveway. The signal
travels through two walls, but is otherwise line-of-sight: no trees,
people, etc.

This setup usually works great, but some days it seems to be affected
adversely. Today (rainy) the WAPs sit there and blink the yellow link
light on and off rapidly, and I can't get an IP address (DHCP) when
hooked into the apartment network.

I have a crappy wireless card in my laptop, and it is sometimes
possible to connect to the WRT54G's wireless in the apartment,
although the signal is usually poor.

I have been told that adding an antenna would be a good solution to
this, but which antenna? Do I need to put it on both ends of the
bridge? And who do I buy it from? Reliability and aesthetics are more
important than cost.

Here is an MSPaint of the setup: http://localtalent.org/network.GIF

Justin <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> The apartment is roughly 70 feet away across the driveway. The signal
> travels through two walls, but is otherwise line-of-sight: no trees,
> people, etc.

This looks almost exactly like the high school outbuilding setup on Michael
Erskine's page about free reflectors http://www.freeantennas.com

For 70 feet of clear space, a pair of reflectors, or quad since you have
two antennas on each bridge, ought to work just fine.

---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cglta4$qm2$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Justin <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > The apartment is roughly 70 feet away across the driveway. The signal
> > travels through two walls, but is otherwise line-of-sight: no trees,
> > people, etc.
>
> This looks almost exactly like the high school outbuilding setup on
Michael
> Erskine's page about free reflectors http://www.freeantennas.com
>
> For 70 feet of clear space, a pair of reflectors, or quad since you have
> two antennas on each bridge, ought to work just fine.
>
> ---
> Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5
>

I was having a problem connecting a DG834G to a spare computer in the
garage. Constructed a "Windsurfer" antenna from the above site and the
difference in performance was unbelievable. The only potential downside is a
drop in signal strength in areas behind the Windsurfer antenna.