Practical WiFi Limitations for Outdoor APs

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gund

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#66589 20-Aug-2010 11:27

Hi

I want to build a wifi AP outdoors to share information with a friend about 3kms away.

I don;t really want council or government on my back about flooding the signal/bandwidth or whatever. Can anybody share experience with this and if there is a particular RFC that applies to New Zelaand for this kind of thing. To be honest, I have no intention of focusing the beam - I want to keep my options open and use omni directional antenna, up to 200mW, and friend using a directional antenna. I'm on a hilltop, so I hope to connect multiple poeple in the future...

Limits? What is practical?

Legalities? What is legal?

Respect? I don;t need any angry neighbours, so I don't want to break other peoples Internet or home networks.

Please share your experience. I have a budget of around $500 and have not bought anything yet.

Cheers

Gund

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8222 posts

Uber Geek

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#370276 20-Aug-2010 11:38

Info should be on here
http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms

gund

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#370279 20-Aug-2010 11:44

Hi

Cheers, I have read that page and found it to either be vague or light. Or this project will be easier than I expect. 1W is pretty powerful, I think, and would suit judging by my testing so far.

My research has turned up that Hamilton allows masts of 6m above ground level, so things are starting to look pretty much like all I need is a clear day or two.

Do you know of any wifi mesh networks that I may be able to hook into then in the Hamilton region?

There used to be a web resource for that, but I have not seen it in a while and cannot find now.

Cheers for the link though.

Gund

wellygary

8328 posts

Uber Geek

#370287 20-Aug-2010 11:49

gund: Hi

I want to build a wifi AP outdoors to share information with a friend about 3kms away.

I don;t really want council or government on my back about flooding the signal/bandwidth or whatever. Can anybody share experience with this and if there is a particular RFC that applies to New Zelaand for this kind of thing. To be honest, I have no intention of focusing the beam - I want to keep my options open and use omni directional antenna, up to 200mW, and friend using a directional antenna. I'm on a hilltop, so I hope to connect multiple poeple in the future...

Limits? What is practical?

Legalities? What is legal?

Respect? I don;t need any angry neighbours, so I don't want to break other peoples Internet or home networks.

Please share your experience. I have a budget of around $500 and have not bought anything yet.

Cheers

Gund

You can do what ever you like in the wifi bands provided you stay within the power outputs specified,
BUT, as it is a common frequency you are not guaranteed any performance.

http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms/licensees/types-of-licence/general-user-licences/short-range-devices/information-on-the-operation-of-wireless-lan-and-related-systems-in-the-2-ghz-and-5-ghz-bands/

webwat

2036 posts

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#370341 20-Aug-2010 14:44

To get a signal across that distance without picking up everybody elses signal, and causing congestion on their too, requires a direction antenna. Its not so much a focussed beam as a directional signal gain that also eliminates lots of the noise.

Time to find a new industry!

michaelmurfy

meow
13254 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#370379 20-Aug-2010 16:13

Take a look at: http://www.ubnt.com/nanostationm

Consumers can use that without any licensing problems, and it falls in your price-range, very nice wee devices and fast too. As long as you have line of sight you will be fine.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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rhy7s

624 posts

Ultimate Geek

#370385 20-Aug-2010 16:29

Grabbing something from http://www.gowifi.co.nz/access-points-802.11.html would be easy.

Antzzz

190 posts

Master Geek

#372907 25-Aug-2010 23:52

I'll second the Ubiquity Nanostation - excellent bit of kit. Their best feature is that not only do they have a high output transmitter, they also have great receive sensitivity. Remember that WIFI is a 2 way thing, no point in having a router that can transmit a signal for miles if it can't pick up the response!

Just keep in mind that the aerial on a Nanostation is directional - basically 180 degrees in front of the panel.

For an omni-directional solution take a look at the Ubiquity Bullet - http://www.ubnt.com/bulletm

Stupidly easy to set up, just mount an omni-directional aerial that has a N connector on the bottom, screw the Bullet to it and connect the network cable (with the POE injector at the other end for power) - job done! And it has the same receiver sensitivity as the Nanostation.

You will have reduced range with an omni-directional setup - basically you are sending the power of the router in all directions rather than just in the direction you want so this is somewhat inefficient.

What kind of environment are you trying to do this in - city or rural? If rural watch out for trees in the signal path - trees are great at sucking the life out of a 2.4ghz signal.

If city as others have noted you are going to need a highly directional antenna as noise from other routers will seriously limit the range of your signal. But that will limit you to reaching only 1 location.

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gund

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#372968 26-Aug-2010 08:38

Hi

Thanks heaps for all the great, informative responses. I have ordered some kit and will test out distance and settings etc to get the gist of what this will be like and howit will work. I have gone with POE as I didn;t see any other way to get power up a mast that was practical or safe.

Cheers

Gund

michaelmurfy

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#373019 26-Aug-2010 10:07

^^ What did you end up ordering?

gund

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#373362 26-Aug-2010 20:57

I bought a POE D-Link 8 port switch off TradeMe. It has only 4 port of POE goodness, but as I know nothing of POE, I intend using this with a few Cisco handsets to get the hang of it - I have VOIP system at the home office.

Next week, I will get an AP if the handsets survive and the switch is all it's cracked up to be.

My hesitance is around all the uncertainty, fo rme, in POE. There seems ot be a few standards out there at the moment and I have already picked up that the marketing speak differs wildly from the technical results, so I'll ease into this one.

Apparently this little switch is good to run more than one AP, I'll see how it fares on a handset first.

Again, thanks for the help and advice, everybody.

Antzzz

190 posts

Master Geek

#374207 29-Aug-2010 15:44

Ahhh, take care with which router you buy then - some (the Ubiquity in particular) use a non-standard POE setup which means you can use only their injectors.

gund

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#374273 29-Aug-2010 19:46

I suspected there would be mixed standards from the veriations of claims on the packaging of different devices, hence my very slow and hesitant entry into POE.

Probably get the first AP toward the rich end of the month unless something small comes up second hand between now and then.

Thanks for the heads up.

raytaylor

4014 posts

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#375905 2-Sep-2010 17:57

Most POE hubs are 48v - you cannot use these with ubiquiti gear. If you buy from gowifi, Dale includes a ubiquiti poe injector and you can use a standard hub.

The Nano loco 5 will go about 3km in an urban environment, or the nanostation 5 will go about 5-7km.
If using ubiquiti gear, try to set your channel width to 10mhz also - be kind to other users and dont hog the spectrum.

If you are using anything where you have a seperate radio and antenna, then you have to make sure your total EIRP doesnt exceed 4 watts. EIRP is worked out by a combination of your antenna size and radio power. The nanostation on maximum output work out to be just on 4 watts from memory.

Also keyword for wireless bridge links - Line of sight is required.

Ray Taylor

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codyc1515

1598 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#375908 2-Sep-2010 18:10

From what I understand you can have:

Up to 4 watts EIRP on a Point-To-Multi-Point connection (in 2.4 GHz)

Up to 200 watts EIRP on a Point-To-Point connection (in 5.8 GHz)

However, I am not a lawyer, so please don't treat this as legal advice.

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#375989 2-Sep-2010 21:36

True - forgot about that 200 watts EIRP for the point to point.
Although if you are transmitting at that power, i wouldnt go anywhere near the front of the antenna lol.
That is 50km super long link levels.

At 5.8ghz, i think you are still limited to 1 watt from your radio part of the equasion to make the total EIRP. the rest has to be done by the antenna

In your radios - you want to aim for a recieved signal between -50 and -60. Nothing higher than -50 or if you are using M gear, try to set the transmit power so your reciever gets between -60 and -65

Ray Taylor

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