Long range wireless router help

[DeereDoc]

Disclaimer - I know very little about computers/networking/etc.

I live in the country - no cable internet and not even DSL available. I have been getting by with a wireless card for a few years now but it sucks. I test my "speed" on the internet and get stuff like 0.24 Mbs download and 0.12 upload or whatever....... and that's on a good day.

Anyway my neighbor has Hughsnet and she thinks it's pretty decent. She has encouraged me to scab off of her's for awhile or forever but her wireless router doesn't extend to my house. It is about 600 feet from a window near her router to a window near where we usually get on the laptop. Clear line of sight.

Basically what I am looking to do is buy a wireless router with a healthy range to put in at her house and hopefully get a signal at mine and try it. Worse case scenario is that it just doesn't work but then I'll just use it at my place and get my own satellite internet. The only reason I am not just getting my own anyway is due to the $250 up front cost and 24 month commitment.........and I have heard from several independent sources that there may be bigger things coming down the pipe in satellite internet and I don't feel like being locked into a contract. But if I can get on hers and like it I will probably get my own eventually.

I have searched every last thing I could find on the internet to try to decide which router would be best in this situation with basically no success. I don't really care to get into the directional antenna, repeater, bridge stuff - both because it will probably cost more (and if I get my own internet later it will be wasted equipment) and also because I simply don't understand it all that well. The second point is the bigger concern i.e. I just don't understand all the repeater, subnet, IP address, DD-WRT, SSID, WEP, etc. etc. etc. stuff very well. I cannot seem to find a concise educate-me type website anywhere either.

Any router recommendations, or other pearls of wisdom, would be greatly appreciated.

One last thing - we plug the wireless card into a cradlepoint device and that allows us to print wirelessly. I assume that all routers these days have that capability.

 

[JDgreen227]

Disclaimer - I know very little about computers/networking/etc.

I live in the country - no cable internet and not even DSL available. I have been getting by with a wireless card for a few years now but it sucks. I test my "speed" on the internet and get stuff like 0.24 Mbs download and 0.12 upload or whatever....... and that's on a good day.

Anyway my neighbor has Hughsnet and she thinks it's pretty decent. She has encouraged me to scab off of her's for awhile or forever but her wireless router doesn't extend to my house. It is about 600 feet from a window near her router to a window near where we usually get on the laptop. Clear line of sight.

Basically what I am looking to do is buy a wireless router with a healthy range to put in at her house and hopefully get a signal at mine and try it. Worse case scenario is that it just doesn't work but then I'll just use it at my place and get my own satellite internet. The only reason I am not just getting my own anyway is due to the $250 up front cost and 24 month commitment.........and I have heard from several independent sources that there may be bigger things coming down the pipe in satellite internet and I don't feel like being locked into a contract. But if I can get on hers and like it I will probably get my own eventually.

I have searched every last thing I could find on the internet to try to decide which router would be best in this situation with basically no success. I don't really care to get into the directional antenna, repeater, bridge stuff - both because it will probably cost more (and if I get my own internet later it will be wasted equipment) and also because I simply don't understand it all that well. The second point is the bigger concern i.e. I just don't understand all the repeater, subnet, IP address, DD-WRT, SSID, WEP, etc. etc. etc. stuff very well. I cannot seem to find a concise educate-me type website anywhere either.

Any router recommendations, or other pearls of wisdom, would be greatly appreciated.

One last thing - we plug the wireless card into a cradlepoint device and that allows us to print wirelessly. I assume that all routers these days have that capability.

Not sure is any wireless router is available with that kind of range, even today. Might be a stupid question, but would it be possible to run a cable from her setup to your house and install your router there? One of my neighbors 400 feet away had a cable tv hookup with broadband internet, even after hooking up a wireless router the signal would barely travel half the distance to my house. I too wish I knew more about the subject, but I am sure there must be many websites to inform you. We finally got DSL after waiting 15 years, it's an improvement over dial up, most of the time.

 

[k0ua]

I have searched every last thing I could find on the internet to try to decide which router would be best in this situation with basically no success. I don't really care to get into the directional antenna, repeater, bridge stuff


You have basicly told us you dont want to try any of these methods, so there is very little we we could do to help you. The only thing I can think of is trying some of the engenius access points or wireless router. here is a link.
They are supposed to be a long range product, but I cannot vouch for them.

The wireless stocking distributor that offers free technical support before, during, and after the sale.

James K0UA

 

[justwater]

i dont know alot about this subject, but i have an apple airport extreme base station.. my dad barely picks it up at his place 280-300' away.

600' is a ways... if you dont want to get into the alot of gizmos like the antennas/repeaters/etc, i think your best bet would be (like mentioned) to run underground cat5 or cat6 line from her router to another at your place. 600' is a long ditch though, so you might as well make the most of it. go ahead and drop a water pipe in it too just in case one of your water goes out (assuming you are on a well) so you can feed off the other temporarily.

jmo, i'm no expert.

 

[Haoleguy]

DeereDoc - From my house I can see the wifi service from a boatyard that is at least 600' away. They provide wifi to all the moored boats in our town's harbor some of which are farther away than my house. My guess is that one answer lies in how harbors, campgrounds, ski lodges, etc provide wifi from a central signal....Gary

 

[KTurner]

It is about 600 feet from a window near her router to a window near where we usually get on the laptop. Clear line of sight.

I don't really care to get into the directional antenna, repeater, bridge stuff

repeater, subnet, IP address, DD-WRT, SSID, WEP, etc. etc. etc.

Couple things. First, no consumer grade off the shelf equipment is going to have 600ft+ range. So, either you're looking for not so "off the shelf" (we do that here on TBN all the time, right?) or professional grade (mucho money). Second, you're talking about a router at your end. That complicates things. If you only need to hook up one device to the internet, skip the router on your end and look at the wireless NIC (card) in your computer.

There's many of them that will allow an external antenna. The external antenna can be anything from a store bought unit, to a cantenna made out of an old pringles can, a homemade yagi, or a surplus 18" satellite dish. People have established wireless links over many miles using 18" satellite dishes as very high gain directional antennas with all other equipment being standard stuff. Now, getting it to work over miles is tuff stuff, but you should be able to get something that does 600ft.

There are different approaches to using a dish, but the simplest is taking a USB wifi adapter and zip tying it about where the LNB is, and running a USB cable from the wifi adapter to your PC. I haven't tried this yet myself, but have an extra dish on a pole in the back yard which I will be trying at some point soon.

Keith

 

[KTurner]

run underground cat5 or cat6 line from her router to another at your place. 600' is a long ditch though,

Standard networking (ethernet, 10/100/1000 BaseT) has a cable run length limit of 328', so this would also include equipment not normally used within home networking.

Keith

 

[radioman]

You are going to be more frustrated trying to find right combo of wireless over 300ft. Its been done, but it was done with right know how and equipment laying around with combo of retail and business equipment. Also your variable will be prayers for no cloudy days/rainy to mess up wireless networking.

My suggestion at this point- assuming you can get power at the halfway point, get a hub (repeater). get 2 300ft cat 5. plug one end in your home in a switch(if you dont have a switch, use your router but do not use the wan port) and other end in hub halfway. second cable in hub and other in your neighbors router. reboot everything and you SHOULD be all ready to go.

 

[justwater]

Standard networking (ethernet, 10/100/1000 BaseT) has a cable run length limit of 328', so this would also include equipment not normally used within home networking.

Keith

my bad, I had buddy that was in surveillance a while back, I thought he told me once that u could run that stuff a long ways, maybe he was just talking about our run. ..or maybe he was just blowing smoke

 

[MossRoad]

First off, what you want to do is illegal.
Second, some satellite internet services that I will not mention by name get horrible reviews due to initial cost of equipment, frequent lack of access, limited bandwidth and bandwidth throttling.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can continue with our technical discussion of how it would work. Just to prove the theory, of course. :laughing:

You need TWO ends. One at her house and one at your house. They both have to be able to send and receive to each other. One easy way to do this is with bridges. We have Cisco wireless bridges AIR-BR340 with good directional antennas doing a 17 mile link with no amplification(we have the advantage of having free access to really high towers :thumbsup. We also have them doing two 5 mile links and one couple hundred foot link. They work really well and can be found on e-bay for under $50 bucks. Then you need some directional antennas which can also be had on e-bay, some coax cables and some mounting hardware. You could probably get away with under $250 for a really good, 11Mb link, which is much faster than her satellite connection.