bobbyb1980 Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Hello all. Some friends and I will soon purchase equipment to service an area of about 1600 feet/.5KM at 90 degrees with a wifi signal, ready to accept connections from laptops, phones, etc. The initial hardware we plan on purchasing is a 90 degree 17dbi sector antenna with a 1 watt transmitter which will be mounted on a roof about 30 feet above ground. The proposed coverage area is an urban setting with buildings from 1-2 stories tall. For bandwidth management we plan on buying a Zyzel router. There will be no repeaters, and the goal is to establish a connection of up to 1600 feet WITH line of sight. Without line of sight and depending on the obstructions, I am hoping to be able to service up to 5 or 6 hundred feet. We are hoping that the standard built in wifi radios most laptops come with will be able to send signals to the antenna from these distances. The wifi antenna vendor claims success at these distances. Does anyone have any experience setting up this type of antenna? Anything I should take into consideration? Did you receive a lot of interference from other 2.4 ghz devices? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hexophrenic Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 That is asking a lot of the wireless cards, but may be doable. If you were using high-power cards, like Alfa or Ubiquity you would stand a good chance. Otherwise, I think at best you will get mixed results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbyb1980 Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 (edited) I wish there was some way to test the transmitting power of the built in wifi radios. For example I have an HPdv6200 with an intel 3945abg chipset and I do not expect good connectivity from this radio. However, on my EEE which has an atheros radio I expect decent results. I wish there was some way to measure the distance that these built in wifi radios can transmit at. Does anyone know of any tests I can perform to measure the transmitting power of the wifi cards? Perhaps if I use "Create New Wireless Network" in Ubuntu (makes the wifi card transmit a wireless network) and use another laptop to connect to it, and progressively increase the distance and measure the connectivity? *edit* I am very inexperienced with phones - Does anyone know generally, more or less, the transmit power of the average built in wifi radio in for example an iPhone or an iPad? Edited September 6, 2011 by bobbyb1980 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Measuring the transmitting power of a device is difficult because it's subjective depending on the device you are using to measure it. You should probably measure it with the equipment you intend to ultimately use it with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
echok4le Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 thanks for this space here sir... rack mountable pdu ;) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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