I hate it when the power blips right after I've written a whole bunch of
stuff. Now I have to do the whole thing again.
I got to talk with Missy when she called for Christmas just a bit ago.
(we open presents on the 24th so everyone was here and got to talk to
her) BTW a Merry Christmas to everyone just so I don't forget to say
that later as I have been known to.
Anyway Missy says that they are planning to run a cable from the dish
router in the bomb shelter to her trailer like they did for the other
two trailers. That's about 200' or so, and then put a router or some
other inexpensive access point box to translate to the wireless in her
trailer so she doesn't have to have a wire all the way to the laptop.
The nearest trailer is about 250' and has the wireless router but after
two blast walls over 10' tall and the 250' the signal just doesn't make
it. Setting the routers outside is not an option due to the dust and
rain. Even putting them into a box doesn't help. That's why the dish is
at the bomb shelter cause the router can be inside there. The other
stuff is all linksys but I think she is thinking of going with netgear
for her link. There isn't any problem with running the cable over the
blast walls as most of the vehicles running down the roads between them
are lower then the tops and when a taller vehicle is going to come they
let them know at least a day before so the cables can be temporarily
disconnected. Fortunately that doesn't happen very often as they just
barely fit down those paths. She says it's a lot of fun driving a pickup
around there as most of the vehicles are so big they will run a pickup
over and not even notice the bump. You are right about the air leak as
the window in her room doesn't even close all the way so she has duct
tape over the one inch gap at the bottom as it is so that will be a good
place to run the cable in.
It seems that the dish connection to the Internet costs $390 a month
over there so having 15 people to share the cost at least brings it down
to a manageable cost without slowing things down too much. I guess there
are a few of these groups over there doing the same thing.
I tell you what the kids these days don't know how good they have it.
Trailers with AC yet even!
Manfred
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:00:49 -0800 (PST)
From: "Tim C." <bb...@crone.us>
You could get a range extender and set it on top of the near blast
wall, but unless you have PoE you also have to power it.
Not to sound too daft, it would be easiest to run a x-ft length of
cat5e from out of one of the connected trailers to somewhere near her
trailer and plug in to a regular router or AP at her place. If the
trailers
are anything like the ones I've seen it won't be adding to the draft
to have a cat5 cable running out the window.
For that matter if she's on good terms with the other trailers maybe
they would set one of their routers on the top of the blast wall, and
everyone could play.
If not, the archived description (last month probably?) of DD-WRT is my
suggestion, install it as a client with the SSID of the good router
and then connect the laptop (or another AP) to the back end. Send along
a very long power extension cord and ethernet cable (local home
improvement store should carry 100' of both) so she can set the DD-WRT
on top
of the blast wall, or even slung over the top onto the ground next
door. I think unless she clears that wall, either line-of-sight (height)
or because the device is past it, the reception may not be satisfactory;
a foot of concrete makes a good signal a lot of noise.
To answer the actual question, the best 11n-draft routers will be
higher x-by-x numbers, you should be able to find 2x2 or 2x3s. Power is
mostly limited by the FCC, the highest 11a channels can be higher power so
a dual-band might help, though I can't say I've ever tested range vs.
channel live so I'm not sure the greater power beats greater
attenuation. The biggest differences are in laptop and AP sensitivity
though,
and there's not a great way to get those numbers reliably.
If she has no practical signal now then I'm concerned that while an
antenna or stronger AP might work, it doesn't sound like she would be
wanting to rebuild it a bunch of times until it worked reliably, or
able to
go buy hardware when all else failed. If I'm misreading that then by
all means go for the antennas, that's more fun anyhow and probably
cheaper. :)
Good luck,
-Tim
_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
