Re-purposing satellite dishes for Wifi antenna

[Conky]

Primestar dish
TREVOR MARSHALL - Biquad feed for primestar dish
12 footer
Unwired Adventures: DEFCON WiFI Shootout 2005
DirecTV dish
How-To: Build a WiFi biquad dish antenna -- Engadget

has anyone built one of these? would you need a completely unobstructed line of sight to the transmitter tower? A local company is offering rural high speed internet at about half the price Im currently paying for rural high speed(which uses the SR telcom Angel system). Their guy that did the site survey, showed up an hour late, pointed his antenna at a maple tree, said I couldn't get a signal, then sped off to his next (overbooked) appointment. I'd like to see if I could get their signal with a 60e starchoice dish

 

[sergei]

has anyone built one of these?

If you have to many tree in the way a different antenna is not going to help and besides the antenna may need to be matched to there system or need a clear line of sight. So it comes down to what system they have, there is more than one type, if it's microwave then you might make and antenna work but I think you could buy one easier than trying to build it.

would you need a completely unobstructed line of sight to the transmitter tower?

Here again it depends on the frequency that's being used. The wireless system that I use is a Motorola 900 MHz Canopy system which will do a better job at cutting threw the foliage. But again it depends on where your located and how high the antenna can be mounted. All my neighbors in my area can't get a signal because of trees, so far I'm the only one which has surprised the installer.

 

[Bob2011]

Most likely its a system with transmitter and flat panel antenna in a box that is powered over ethernet. This would rule out building your own antenna unless they offered a unit with an external antenna connection. Yeah it might be possible to ghetto rig the panel pointing into a dish but that would be a big gamble. The biquad antennas mentioned above are really just for sharing a wifi connection over a mile or two. Now if you have a trust worthy neighbor to share a connection with this could be an option.

I have seen the flat panels on 40 foot towers for people with tree/distance issues but that is a serious $$$ installation

 

[rv1pop]

one other problem, not yet mentioned, is the dish increases the Effective Radiated Power which is controlled / licensed by the FCC. At least that is the reason given by Gorge Net why they could not use a dish at my place to get the best / highest speed for me.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Most likely its a system with transmitter and flat panel antenna in a box that is powered over ethernet. This would rule out building your own antenna unless they offered a unit with an external antenna connection.

There is a local WIFI system here that uses that type antenna. I tried it but it was a no go until I mounted a ten ft mast on the roof of my house that put that antenna about thirty ft off the ground. That and an add on 36" yagi directional antenna made it work fine but the guy choked my speed down to thirty kbps so I dropped that crap and went to a USB data card with nTelos cellular.

 

[Conky]

The W-ISP in question is offering NanoBridge M5 and M2 antennas. would one of these homemade biquad/ dish combos connected to a router perform the same function(assuming I had a clear shot)?

 

[FaT Air]

I pretty sure M5 is 5Ghz. and M2 is 2.4Ghz So which ever is used the bi-quad will have to scaled accordingly. And yes, you need a clear line of site. Also, the routers they use usually sends data and and current up to the actual radio contained in the antenna. Much like our STB's power the LNBF's and send commands to a motor. in this instance, a homemade antenna itself won't work, The ISP's would have an assortment of antennas to choose from, with varying gains, for an installation. I used to have M5 wireless, I had what they called a "medium gain" originally. My ISP changed it to a "high gain" model for the last year and a half I had them. The neighbors trees grew up and now are a factor that cannot be "shot thru". Now have another ISP that doesn't have to shoot through trees. BUT- The homemade antennas can greatly extend the range of your own wireless LAN or the range to a Public(free?) WI-FI hotspot. A USB wireless stick can get amazing range when mounted at the focal point of an old 18 inch pizza dish.

 

[radio]

We've had fun experimenting with the 75cm Channel master dish, and taping a "USB high power" unit from Amazon where the LNB would go. About 2 to 2.5 miles worth of signals came in, mostly secured. (people are finally learning.) A few of them were a local subscription service for rural underserved areas. This was all done at a friend's house who WANTS to subscribe to the wireless service, but the service refuses to call him back, even after we did the preliminaries and figured he'd get decent signal. Seems in our area, nobody WANTS our business when it comes to wireless 'net for semi-rural areas.

A biquad was also put on the same 75 cm dish and it helped, improved a little, but...did not do much more than the small USB device-did.

And, yes by the way....the wireless (effective radiated) power is regulated. There IS a loophole for some of the channels that allow you higher power if you're a licensed Ham operator.....and, I believe you must make your "key" public if you are asked, even if ham-licensed and using point to point equipment. Another user here (NE8E) found me the details in the ham/FCC/wifi rules. I'm sure with some searching you can also find them.

 

[Cadsulfide]

They work, and work well. Recently installed a point to point link with a Linksys router on one end and a usb wi-fi adapter on the other. I used two dish 500's mounted upside down, just flip the skew plate. The two dishes are almost a mile apart. About 80% signal Q. Just like with Sat signals, good cable is important. Using LMR400 50 ohm cable from the antenna and transceivers. The biquads are housed in a section of 4" PVC pipe coupling. The N connectors, copper clad board, and RP sma to N cables were obtained from fleabay.

 

[SatelliteAV]

For my own experimentation, I have mounted a homemade "tuna can" WiFi antenna in place of a LNBF on various sizes of dishes. See basic example of cantennas at http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

I have sent Slingbox HD and VLC HD streams from off the grid production origin locations back to a served area with great results. The longest point to point "production link" using 802.11n with a 90cm on each end has been about 5 miles with excellent signals and high sustained throughput.

When RVing I often use a 14" inverted portable offset dish with a "tunantenna" when experiencing poor WiFi. One of my favorite locations has zero Wifi on the laptop. Connect with a "cantenna" and get 36+/-Mbps. The dish with "tunantenna" will often exceed 100Mbps. Have had a few strange comments when neighbors see the upside down dish aimed in their direction. The comments always turn to questions when I have Internet (Netflix in the evenings) and they have to sit in the clubhouse just to check email. LOL!

 

[empiretc]

biquad configurations work well, but are directional and several factors can cause interference.

you can have a lot of fun connecting your wireless router to an OTA antenna. all you need is a few adapters and an amp for good measure.

 

[Stargazer]

I am curious what the difference in signal strength would be using a usb stick with the same power in front of a satellite dish vs. an external antenna that WISPS use on an N connectorized radio. Ubiquiti makes a device that has the radio built into the feed of an antenna so maybe that would be no different than using the usb stick?

I am also curious how far you can run the signal over a USB cable and if it goes too far if you can power it over ethernet somehow. USB sticks are cheaper than a radio and it seems to me like you could get the same performance as one of the larger radios.

 

[Stargazer]

For my own experimentation, I have mounted a homemade "tuna can" WiFi antenna in place of a LNBF on various sizes of dishes. See basic example of cantennas at How to build a tin can waveguide antenna

I have sent Slingbox HD and VLC HD streams from off the grid production origin locations back to a served area with great results. The longest point to point "production link" using 802.11n with a 90cm on each end has been about 5 miles with excellent signals and high sustained throughput.

I have read about the VLC and Slingbox streaming but have not been able to figure it out. That streaming was done on a private network, am I right? That is something that I would like to do if I knew how to do it.

 

[SatelliteAV]

Yes, it was private, key protected, point to point, dual channel "802.11n on the cleanest available channels. At the base end, use a PC hard wired to the wireless router receiving the signals and outputting via an ASI card to the encoder.

Just think of the WiFi router as a typical home wireless LAN, just located a bit further away!

 

[danristheman]

Also look up this video from the old screensavers tv show.

Dan Rose

YouTube - ?WiFi Satellite Dish?‏

 

[Cadsulfide]

biquad configurations work well, but are directional and several factors can cause interference.

you can have a lot of fun connecting your wireless router to an OTA antenna. all you need is a few adapters and an amp for good measure.

The directivity of a biquad is an asset, IMHO, little or no channel interference from nearby, off-axis access points. Beamwidth of an inverted Dish 500 is about 4 degrees I would guess.

I would be very reluctant to connect any Wi-Fi gear to an OTA antenna; OTA antenna's are designed for MUCH longer wavelengths, and typically 300 or 75 ohm impedance. Without careful attention to impedance matching to the 50 ohm Wi-Fi source, the SWR will be so high you risk frying the transmitter . A commercial ($$$) Yagi is the best choice if you don't want want to go the DIY route, but you still need good quality downlead cable or you signal will still be in the toilet.

A poorly matched antenna can easily resonate at undesired harmonics. Of course, the good people at the FCC usually frown on folks generating a lot of RF hash or other "spurious emissions". I am guessing a visit from them is never pleasant.

802.11 bi-directional amps are available, but are out of the price range of most hobbyists. A high power Wi-Fi usb adapter with an RP SMA connector is less that $40, A PCI card for a desktop is ~$25, and the street price for a 4 port Wi-Fi router is less than that. Pre-made cables run ~$20-35. Less than $100 for long range Wi-Fi is a bargain and overcomes the 100 meter distance limitation of Cat5 cable and the hassle of getting it from points A to B.

I am a big fan of using COTS (Commercially available, Off The Shelf) technology whenever possible, and re-purposing it to solve a problem. My thanks to Trevor Marshall for having done most of the grunt work.

 

[empiretc]

Agreed about the yagi. It is cheaper to purchase a device already designed for what you need. However, the testing part is what makes any hobby fun.