Needing to bridge two buildings

[MBony]

I need a wireless solution between 2 buildings. Also, the buildings don't point directly at each other so I might need to mount outside. Has anyone had any experience doing this?

Photo Description - Hope this doesn't confuse even more...

 

[Phoenixhunter]

Budget?

 

[JackMDS]

60feet sholud not be a problem if you use two directional Antennae that look each one in the eye.

Otherwise you need a survey.

:sun:

 

[Rogue]

Hell, just trench some conduit and run a few strands of CAT5 across there. Probably cheaper and less problematic.

 

[Transition]

I have/had a similar problem. Two building about 50 yards apart with a parking lot between them. My #1 choice would always be to do a CAT5 run, but seeing as to how we'd need to tear apart the parking lot, curbs, etc. it's not worth it. I ended up picking up 2 3COM wireless bridges and directional antenna's. Now i just need to get the equipment on the roof!

 

[Diaonic]

I know this is kinda dated equipment but it's been running strong for 4 almost 5 years.

We installed a cisco aeronet so we could connect two schools across a a soccer field. It's been flawless. It's only a 3mb connection, but it's a small school.

 

[ktwebb]

Originally posted by: Diaonic
I know this is kinda dated equipment but it's been running strong for 4 almost 5 years.

We installed a cisco aeronet so we could connect two schools across a a soccer field. It's been flawless. It's only a 3mb connection, but it's a small school.

If your using BR series bridges then you should see in the 5.5-6Mb range for 340, 350 or even older series BR500 bridges. If your resends are in the 0-3% range and both signal quality and strength are solid then I would strongly consider making sure you have the most up to date firmware. 3 Mb would be unacceptable to me, but that's only because I know you can get more out of those bridges. Certainly from that distance. Hell, you could probably use omni's at that distance and get 0% retries. Well the 340's had 30 mW radios but you still should be pushing the data rate to what the device is capable of.

 

[Diaonic]

If i wasn't leaving for a new job in the next week and this place wanted to treat me better I might consider working on that.

Thanks for the advice, I know they were never properly installed, but it's a school and they didn't have the money for a survey

 

[ktwebb]

Well if you have line of site and are using directionals you can always just do "ghetto" panning. I loved the older Aironet gear and it's easy number based menu system. Not all that long ago I could have told you the sequence of numbers to use from memory but basically you just go to the site survey within a console session to the bridge and you can do dynamic signal testing. You then just pan from one antenna until you get it looking as good as it's going to get, then do the same on the other end. At soccer field distances using a laser is probably the easiest way to get the link right on the money but the poor man's panning technique also works in a pinch.

 

[dbleoslow]

I don't think the biggest issue will be the link itself but the mounting of the equipment. There are tons of players in the wireless game now and you could get a kit pretty cheap. The things you really want to study, if you want to mount outside, are things like building penetrations and mounting. I don't know how much you pay attention to building codes but if you're going between floors you have a few considerations to look at. Another thing you want to make sure of is grounding all your outside equipment (w/lightning arrestors)so you don't fry somthing.

Then there's things like buget and required link speed. I think the link itself will be the easy part.

 

[drinkmorejava]

meh, worth are try, are both buildings hooked up to the same power source, there's always those power outlet network connectors.

 

[cparker]

If you can get to a window in each building so they can see each other bridging this distance is easy. Just get two access points, I use the wap54g models from linksys. Set them up for bridge mode. Also go to www.freeantennas.com and construct parabolic reflectors out of file folder stock, aluminum foil and scotch tape using their templates which you print out on a printer. If you use dual antenna access points then make two for each one. These reflectors slip on the existing antennas. This will give a 20 db increase in signal (two 10 db reflectors) so that you have, in effect, a 100 fold power increase of signal strength, so you should wind up with good throughput. You will, of course, have to run some cat5 cable from each access point to a switch that the computers in each building are connected to. Also you will need to concern yourself with security issues (changing the encryption key regularly, using netbui for file sharing, and such. You probably would want to change to the newest boxes that have even more enhanced security when they become available, but for now, the setup I described should work in that it will easily cover the distance without having to go outdoors and mount antennas, have expensive low loss feedlines, etc.