wifi repeater

The cabling is just to get the antenna up the mast for the height
advantage. But rather than a cable run, I wanted to broadcast/receive
wifi from a repeater at the masthead.. I found a repeater that would do
the job but it is rediculously pricey. In the meantime I found
another possible solution, and that is to have a USB wifi dongle at the
top of the mast. The mast is 15 meters high and an active cable (very
cheap) will connect the dongle to the PC. Now I just need to find an
antenna the will be happy at the top of the mast, be omni-directional,
and work with the USB wifi dongle....
Jim
 >> Stay informed about: wifi repeater 

<jimthom.RemoveThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:1125057296.352789.207220@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> The cabling is just to get the antenna up the mast for the height
> advantage. But rather than a cable run, I wanted to broadcast/receive
> wifi from a repeater at the masthead.. I found a repeater that would do
> the job but it is rediculously pricey. In the meantime I found
> another possible solution, and that is to have a USB wifi dongle at the
> top of the mast. The mast is 15 meters high and an active cable (very
> cheap) will connect the dongle to the PC. Now I just need to find an
> antenna the will be happy at the top of the mast, be omni-directional,
> and work with the USB wifi dongle....


Isn't there a maximum length (five meters) for direct USB connections or is
that only for printers?
Another option is to use a radio lan card in an ethernet bridge and connect
a Wifi external antenna to the card. No limits there and you should be able
to feed power over the LAN cable. There are weather proof omnidirectional
wifi antennas, most would have a horizontal lobve though. An upside down
ground plane antenna might do the job better.
 >> Stay informed about: wifi repeater 

Jonas Lonnroth wrote:
> <jimthom.DeleteThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>In the meantime I found
>>another possible solution, and that is to have a USB wifi dongle at the
>>top of the mast. The mast is 15 meters high and an active cable (very
>>cheap) will connect the dongle to the PC. Now I just need to find an
>>antenna the will be happy at the top of the mast, be omni-directional,
>>and work with the USB wifi dongle....
>
> Isn't there a maximum length (five meters) for direct USB connections or is
> that only for printers?

You're correct. My guess is that "active extenders" are 5m ( = 16 ft)
cables with a USB hub built in. Longer ones are not according to
specification (even though they might work (most of the time)).

So for a 15 meter mast you'd need four ... Not a viable option. Running
a powered ethernet cable with the smallest access point you can find
would be a better solution, but those AP's are still pretty big.

Kees
 >> Stay informed about: wifi repeater 

Kees Verruijt <kees.DeleteThis@scanner391.net> wrote in
news:431c2652$0$11062$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl:

> So for a 15 meter mast you'd need four ... Not a viable option. Running
> a powered ethernet cable with the smallest access point you can find
> would be a better solution, but those AP's are still pretty big.
>
> Kees
>

His LAN port is Ethernet, not USB. Ethernet will go a LONG way without
repeating. There's one buried in my lawn to my neighbor's house. It's
over 400' and works great at 100 Mbps to my Netgear RP114 router.

--
Larry
 >> Stay informed about: wifi repeater