Extended Wi Fi with C-Band Dish

[Sadoun]

Hi all,

In the latest Tele-Satellite magazine, there was an article about people using prime focus C-band dishes for extending the Wi-Fi range (some claim up to several miles). Anyone tried that? What type of setup have you seen?

 

[Shawn95GT]

Several miles should be a piece of cake with an antenna the size of a c-band antenna.

I just collected some de-commissioned wifi backhaul equipment that was using mesh antennas smaller than my Baby Primestar dish. The stuff I got was running about a half watt of power and was used to shoot 10 miles plus between sites.

hehe check this site out - they got 125 miles with a prime focus and un-amplified equipment!:

http://www.wifi-shootout.com/

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

I read an article some where, where some tech schools had a competition and used two C-Band dishes to create a 100+ mile LOS Wireless Link and if the mobile dish had been able to traverse to the secondary site at a higher altitude it would have been a 200+ mile link.

I'm trying to find the article now.

LOL as I was looking for the article someone posts the site.

 

[ken2400]

This is just like getting sats. You need clear line of site.

Hi all,

In the latest Tele-Satellite magazine, there was an article about people using prime focus C-band dishes for extending the Wi-Fi range (some claim up to several miles). Anyone tried that? What type of setup have you seen?

 

[Anole]

2.4ghz on a C band dish? no problem

A while back, I read about these students getting a couple of kilometers on somewhat parabolic cooking utensils.
I see no reason you couldn't do far better on a 6' Sami.

PS: over water shots are the flattest shots you can make...
... other than mountain-to-mountain.
Anyone got a lake or couple of mountains in their back yard?

 

[Sadoun]

Shawn

Thank for the nice link. I am wondering if you will see quite a few free hot-spots as a result of using satellite dishes.

I don't see why we can't use an offset dish to achieve this (for a shorter distance for example)?

Anyone has more details on the antenna used to TX/RX the signal? I have read in some of the articles in the link above that USB or Coaxial conenctions were used between the antenna and the PCMCIA zCom card.

 

[Stargazer]

If you can go as far as 200 miles with Wi-Fi then why can't someone put up a hot air balloon or helium balloon or something like that and use it to transmit high speed internet to it and point the dishes towards it to receive a signal? Or perhaps have one of those on a hill somewhere and solve the problem with hills, mountains, and trees. Is this what would have to be done in hilly regions with lots of trees or are there other ways of accomplishing this? I would like to try something like this if its possible. Being in WV it would be hard to get line of site.

 

[Shawn95GT]

I don't see why we can't use an offset dish to achieve this (for a shorter distance for example)?

Anyone has more details on the antenna used to TX/RX the signal? I have read in some of the articles in the link above that USB or Coaxial conenctions were used between the antenna and the PCMCIA zCom card.

They do... This article is why I orignally picked up the Primestar dish I used when I first got into FTA:

http://www.trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm

A lot of times instead of an adaptor and a long lead (lots of loss), they'll put a wireless router up on the pole with the antenna in a weatherproof enclosure. Add power over ethernet and all you need to run up the pole is a single run of cat 5.

A couple more Primestar dishes doing wifi duty:

http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Primestar/Primestar.html

http://www5.cs.cornell.edu/~eckstrom/802.11a/primestar/

I was getting ready to setup a long (7 miles) wifi link for a friend of the family who lived far enough out of town to not have any hope for broadband anytime soom. He moved before we got around to giving it a shot.

If you want to do some experimenting, Sveasoft distributes a pretty slick custom firmware for Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GS routers. I've got Sveasoft's Talisman firmware on two of these routers and I'll be adding a thrid soon. I'm using WDS to link my up and downstairs. The #3 router will be to get my home office Internet connected (without having to buy wireless cards for a half dozen machines). Good stuff .

Shawn

 

[hdtvtechno]

WOW cool

 

[goaliebob99]

thanks for the link about the firm ware uprgades.. I will give that a shot on my router...

 

[MrTim]

Most satellite folks don't know that DMS International has a wireless division. For more than 3 years we've been making antennas and feed systems. We were the first to engineer a feed for 5.8GHz.

For 3 years we've OEMed for some major companies. This year we've expanded our sales to Distributors as well.

If you're interested you can check out our wireless site that we are working on at http://www.dmswireless.com/gammds . It's not finished yet so most links don't work. When it's finished it will replace our http://www.dmswireless.com site.

So, I'd love to see a place for wireless here.

 

[rkrenicki]

thanks for the link about the firm ware uprgades.. I will give that a shot on my router...

Just to note, with any aftermarket firmware on a router, if you increase your transmit power above 84mW, you will greatly reduce the life of your router..

I have one sitting next to me that lasted 4 months, and now only works within 10 feet at 84mW...

 

[Shawn95GT]

Just to note, with any aftermarket firmware on a router, if you increase your transmit power above 84mW, you will greatly reduce the life of your router..

I have one sitting next to me that lasted 4 months, and now only works within 10 feet at 84mW...

I'm sure it doesn't help the longevity - and any aftermarket firmware will void the warranty.

I found in testing around the house that uber-high power setting don't help much anyways. I have my bridge running 56mW and I get excellent signal anywhere in or around the house with the client adaptors on my laptops.

I've had an overall good experience with the last three major versions from Sveasoft. I've been running Sveasoft firmware on at least one of my routers for over a year now. My WRT54G has had Satori, Alchemy, and now Talisman on it. I enjoy playing with the custom firmware on the Linksys.

Shawn

 

[rkrenicki]

My WRT54G had (has?) Alchemy 1.0 on it..

I replaced it with a Motorola WR850G w/OpenWRT running on it.. this time limited to 75mW to not overdrive the built in amp.

I was happy with the Sveasoft software, but a little more warning about the power overdriving problem would have been nice

 

[Sadoun]

Shawn


Nice links, thank you. With the Sveasoft software, can you limit the access to the Linksys router/switch to only authorized MAC addresses/devices?

 

[hdtvtechno]

Shawn


Nice links, thank you. With the Sveasoft software, can you limit the access to the Linksys router/switch to only authorized MAC addresses/devices?

Yes

 

[No Strings]

I think there are some limits as to how far Fast Ethernet can go. The speed at which error detection happens causes most of the packets to be retransmitted data an limits throughput.

Neal

 

[timmy1376]

I was involved in a wireless project here at work, and we are using point to point, from the top of a grain elevator to our unit offices. Some are over a mile away, but still get great signal. We get our connection from campus, and are using dish type antennas, but they are more like a bbq grill grate, than a solid dish.

Our farthest away is using a small panel that is 8 db gain, with a bridge connected by a 24 in pigtail, powered by POE, power over ethernet. That cat5 cable carries not only the signal down from the bridge, but it also carries the power for the bridge on one single cable.

Very slick.

In our town, we have a company that sells wireless internet, and they are using a transmitter setup on a radio tower, on what is called Top of the World here, a taller hill in town. I can set a usb linksys adapter in my kitchen windows, and see their connection, but they are locked down by MAC so you cannot get on without paying.

 

[Anole]

BUDs for ham or wifi use

The wireless internet company undoubtedly has a license to operate all over town.

Any sort of unregulated long-haul link, probably violates existing FCC rules and regulations.
So, while it's amusing and educational to test out such projects, putting (many of) them into daily service is ill advised.

One legal use is for ham radio...

For more info on 2.4ghz and BUDs, you might want to take a look at this part of the Dr. Robert Suding site.
There is a discussion on patch feeds for your BBQ grill antenna, and covering the grill for better gain.

If you can manage to not be swept away with all the goodies this guy has built, there are a lot of interesting and useful ideas to be found.

And it goes without saying, if you were going to run wifi (or amateur data) putting a USB transceiver at the feed point and not running coax anywhere, is the way to go!