Base >> repeater >> client

Hi,

I plane to establish a wireless link of 3kms from a house with good internet
connection to a repeater and then from the repeater to a few clients about
3kms away.

The WRT54GS can be used in bridge mode and with sveasoft firmware the radio
output can be boosted significantly. However does it also exist good (and
budget) devices with strong radio (TX/RX) for the repeater so I don't need
two WRT54GS at the repeater site.

If I use such a repeater device both for my repeater station and at each
client site then they will also have wireless LAN inside their house.

Tips on quality devices in the genre are welcome

best regards

Tor




Tor Tveitane

"Tor Tveitane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I plane to establish a wireless link of 3kms from a house with good internet
>connection to a repeater and then from the repeater to a few clients about
>3kms away.

Do you mean the repeater is 3kms from the house and then the
clients are another 3kms farther?

The problem is that 3kms is a fair distance to cover, and will
almost certainly require external high gain (directional)
antennas. From the house to the repeater site is not a problem,
with say a pair of WRT54GS units, assuming you have line of
sight and use good antennas.

From the repeater site to the "few clients" is going to depend
on factors you haven't stated. Are they all located in one
direction, or are they spread out? If, for example, they are
all in one large building, or perhaps in one group of buildings,
where an antenna with a 30 degree beam width will cover all of
them equally, you can to it easily. But if they are spread out
so that there is more than a 20 degree or so angle between the
directions to them (from the repeater site), one antenna will
not do the trick, and you'll need multiple wireless links.

>The WRT54GS can be used in bridge mode and with sveasoft firmware the radio
>output can be boosted significantly. However does it also exist good (and
>budget) devices with strong radio (TX/RX) for the repeater so I don't need
>two WRT54GS at the repeater site.

Best case scenario would be a single AP at the house, no
repeater site needed (line of sight to every client, and all of
them bunched together in one location), and a single WRT54GS at
each client location. In all cases high gain antennas will be
required.

If there is no line of sight to the clients, and the repeater is
necessary, the you'll need, at a minimum, a single AP at the
house, a WRT54GS repeater, and a WRT54GS at each client
location. Again, high gain antennas are required.

However, if the clients are not all grouped close together a
different arrangement is necessary. Given that it also has
other benefits and is not really all that expensive... you
might want to consider this regardless of what else could be
done.

Each WRT54GS has 4 ethernet ports, and it is therefore possible
to use multiple back to back WRT54GS units at the repeater site,
connected via the ethernet ports rather than as wireless
repeaters. A network might look like this:


HOUSE REPEATER CLIENTS
___________ ________________________ ___________
/ \ / \ / \
3km 3km
wireless link wireless links
+---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
| base | | repeater| | repeater| | client 1|
| WRT54GS |~~~~~~~| WRT54GS | | WRT54GS |~~~~~~~~~| WRT54GS |
| | | | | | | |
| WAN | | LAN | | WAN | | |
+---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
| | | | | |
to ISP | | | +---------+
| | | +---------+ +---------+
| | | | repeater| | client 2|
| | | | WRT54GS |~~~~~~~~~| WRT54GS |
| | | | | | |
| | | | WAN | | |
| | | +---------+ +---------+
| | | |
| | +-----------+
| |
To 2 Other
Client Links

That particular configuration would work for four client links,
but it could also be done by chaining each "repeater" to the LAN
of another, thus providing for more than 4 clients.

Also note that if any two client locations are located close
enough, they can share a repeater site WRT54GS.

>If I use such a repeater device both for my repeater station and at each
>client site then they will also have wireless LAN inside their house.

Yes. However, that may not work as well as expected. You will
need directional antennas, hence the signal quality at the
client location is not going to be all that good. You can make
if work by using a high gain antenna on one of the two antenna
connections, and leaving the omni directional antenna on the
other. However there will be problems with poor throughput when
a wireless client connects and uses the Internet, because the
WRT54GS will be switching back and forth between the antennas,
and will often be on the wrong antenna and lose a packet when it
is. That will just slow things down though, and it will still
be useful.

>Tips on quality devices in the genre are welcome

I would suggest that WRT54G units rather than WRT54GS units
might be a worthwhile cost savings. In either case the wireless
throughput is probably going to exceed the total bandwidth
available to your ISP, hence whatever benefit you get from the
WRT54GS will be unusable when connecting to the Internet.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) (E-Mail Removed)

Tor Tveitane <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I plane to establish a wireless link of 3kms from a house with good internet
> connection to a repeater and then from the repeater to a few clients about
> 3kms away.

This sounds like the relay described at
http://www.nodomainname.co.uk/Equati..._broadband.htm

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

"Floyd L. Davidson" <(E-Mail Removed)> skrev i melding
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Tor Tveitane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >I plane to establish a wireless link of 3kms from a house with good
internet
> >connection to a repeater and then from the repeater to a few clients
about
> >3kms away.
>
> Do you mean the repeater is 3kms from the house and then the
> clients are another 3kms farther?

Yes, house > repeater = 3kms and repeater >> clients = 3kms

> The problem is that 3kms is a fair distance to cover, and will
> almost certainly require external high gain (directional)
> antennas. From the house to the repeater site is not a problem,
> with say a pair of WRT54GS units, assuming you have line of
> sight and use good antennas.

OK so
>
> From the repeater site to the "few clients" is going to depend
> on factors you haven't stated. Are they all located in one
> direction, or are they spread out?

They are all in one direction, a 9 degree 24 dBi grid will do nicely.


> Best case scenario would be a single AP at the house, no
> repeater site needed (line of sight to every client, and all of

Sorry no line of sight (this is in a bending valley)

> If there is no line of sight to the clients, and the repeater is
> necessary, the you'll need, at a minimum, a single AP at the
> house, a WRT54GS repeater, and a WRT54GS at each client
> location. Again, high gain antennas are required.

Why do we an AP at the house? Would it be more appropriate at the repeater
site where different clients are to be connected wirelessly?

> Each WRT54GS has 4 ethernet ports, and it is therefore possible
> to use multiple back to back WRT54GS units at the repeater site,
> connected via the ethernet ports rather than as wireless
> repeaters. A network might look like this:


I understand but given the cost of good antennas, lightning protection,
pigtails and cables this might become a bit too expensive.

You mention only *one* WRT54GS at the repeater site. Does this mean that I
can connect both antennas to only one box and it will be able to shuffle
everything to and from alone??

Would there be any speed benefit if using two WRT54GS (one towards the house
and the second towards the clients)?

Would theWRTG54GS pointing towards the clients at the repeater site be able
to handle multiple connections (albeit less than 10 at a time...)?

Thanks for comments on this

best regards

Tor

"Tor Tveitane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>"Floyd L. Davidson" <(E-Mail Removed)> skrev i melding
>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Do you mean the repeater is 3kms from the house and then the
>> clients are another 3kms farther?
>
>Yes, house > repeater = 3kms and repeater >> clients = 3kms
>
....
>> From the repeater site to the "few clients" is going to depend
>> on factors you haven't stated. Are they all located in one
>> direction, or are they spread out?
>
>They are all in one direction, a 9 degree 24 dBi grid will do nicely.

That makes it significantly less complicated, and less expensive.

>> If there is no line of sight to the clients, and the repeater is
>> necessary, the you'll need, at a minimum, a single AP at the
>> house, a WRT54GS repeater, and a WRT54GS at each client
>> location. Again, high gain antennas are required.
>
>Why do we an AP at the house? Would it be more appropriate at the repeater
>site where different clients are to be connected wirelessly?

You could indeed put an AP at the repeater site, and use a
client at the house. It isn't really a "repeater" then...
Since that was the terminology used I was assuming either an
existing AP, or a use for an AP, at the house. But if not,
there is no real need to have one. Of course a WRT54G is about
as inexpensive as anything, and can be used as an AP, a
repeater, or a client, so regardless of what you call it I'm
assuming it would be a WRT54G. (As noted previously, there
isn't any advantage to a WRT54GS in this application.)

>> Each WRT54GS has 4 ethernet ports, and it is therefore possible
>> to use multiple back to back WRT54GS units at the repeater site,
>> connected via the ethernet ports rather than as wireless
>> repeaters. A network might look like this:
>
>I understand but given the cost of good antennas, lightning protection,
>pigtails and cables this might become a bit too expensive.

Moot point, as you apparently don't need more than one pair
anyway!

>You mention only *one* WRT54GS at the repeater site. Does this mean that I
>can connect both antennas to only one box and it will be able to shuffle
>everything to and from alone??

That apparently could be done, but it probably wouldn't work
very well due to the need to switch between the antennas. One
WRT54G would work well *if* it has an omni-directional antenna.
It is possible that a 7 dBi omni at the repeater site and a 24
dBi grid at the client would work; but a more conservative
approach would be to use two WRT54G units that are connected via
the ethernet ports. One WRT54G for each direction.

>Would there be any speed benefit if using two WRT54GS (one towards the house
>and the second towards the clients)?

I'm not sure just how much difference there would be, but since
a WDS repeater cuts the throughput in half, it is almost certain
that a back to back pair would be significantly faster.

However... I'm not sure that makes any difference at all,
because your wireless network is going to be faster than your
Internet connection by a significant margin. Assuming all
traffic will be to the Internet (i.e., none of the clients will
be sending traffic to each other), the bottleneck will not be
the wireless throughput, even if you cut it in half again.

>Would theWRTG54GS pointing towards the clients at the repeater site be able
>to handle multiple connections (albeit less than 10 at a time...)?

Definitely.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) (E-Mail Removed)