[MLB-WIRELESS] I'm setting up in Camberwell x 3 - I know nothing!

[Me]

Hiya all,

I've just signed up and attempting the following:

Setting up wireless connectivity for myself and two friends (A, B, and C in
pretty much a straight line).

A = Peel Street Kew (3.5kms from B)
B = Burke Road (ugly brown building opposite JB hifi)
C = Beech Street Hartwell / Camberwell (3.5kms from B)

I reckon all would have line of sight or pretty damn close. I'm working out
how to test this in the next few days.

I'm reasonably aware of the costs and at this point in time I'm happy to put
in the money so long as it works as it'd be an awesome project to complete.

I work at an AppleCentre and my technical knowledge is up there along with
my access to wholesale equipment, but I've never really dabbled in any
wireless stuff outside of Airport Extreme.

I bought some stuff from Troy in Moorabbin today (from melbwireless) hoping
that what I've bought will suffice:

- modified galaxy grid - 24db
- modified hills grid - 20db
- home made omni - 8db-ish?
- around 20m of mega thick coax (just in case)

I want all three of us (A, B, and C) to be able to access a server in Kew,
do overnight off-site backups between each other and see what other purposes
having three nodes may provide to others.

I'm in between whether I should get yagi's or more grids. Grids are less
prone to interference? I don't know. In total I'll need 4 I guess (2 on B
and 1 each on A and C). So B would become the "repeater" so to speak.

Are there repeaters that do real repeating?
Should I house the APs in a box outside or use the thick coax?
Should I put an omni at B and grids / yagi's at A and C or do I really need
directionals everywhere to get realistic bandwidth?
How to measure signal strength?

Other equipment after the antenna's I'm looking at is:

- wireless router for A and C
- two wireless routers for B (unless I can plug two antennas into the one
AP??)
- pigtails and stuff that I wouldn't know about.

I'm used to buying D-link or Netgear stuff for clients, but I'm sure there's
cheaper, nastier stuff.

I'm willing to spend money if it's going to work and I think it'd be an
awesome project and hopefully fills in some gaps on the map for everyone.

I'm hoping some people in the area might be able to help me get started and
hopefully I can help them out with some stuff.

Guy



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