HomeMadeTurboz

So here is my scenario: I just moved to this little town in southern AB, Okotoks if anyone cares. Now I am not even actually in town limits of Okotoks, and on a newly subdivided 6 acres that has no phone line or cable, as such I shouldn't have any internet, but as it turns out I do. My house is up on a hill and there is no trees or blockages around, my nearest neighbor is about .25miles away, and has an unsecured linksys (I guess he figures who is going to borrow my internet this far out)

Here is my problem only one of my computers (dell latitude D630 laptop) can actually use this internet (1mbps with low signal strength), one of my other laptops receives the signal intermittently (1mbps no signal), the rest not at all.

I have a linksys wrk54G router which is the garbage version of the WRT54G as it has a different (non broadcom) chip and is unable to be re flashed to something useful, but it works fine for being a router in my house. So my plan is:

Either to get a dedicated Bridge, with a high gain antenna, and if necessary an amplifier (---- the fcc I live in Canada, and way out in the sticks at that. So if necessary I will get 2 watts +) and then I will connect my vonnage telephone (then I have something other then my cell phone) to that and the wrk54G to the vonnage and re broadcast to my house and to the tennents downstairs.

OR

Get a Linksys WRT54G and reflash it, so that it potentially can be a bridge and a router all in one (though I am not entirely sure how to do this) and again a high gain antenna and an amplifier if needed, and do the same as above.


For my antenna I will start with what is on the bridge or the WRT54G and then add one of those antennas that you print out and cut out wrap in tinfoil, if that is not enough I will try a cantenna, if that is not enough I will build a biquad or dualbiquad using an extra sat dish I have.

Now for some questions:
1) Can you add an external antenna to any router or bridge, if not do you know what bridge I can?
2) Does this sound like a reasonable plan or am I going about this all wrong :1


3) Thanks.

JoshMO

All this work for your neighbor to discover that somehow his bandwidth is being used up and puts a security code on it. Good luck.

Jorsher

You can use dd-wrt firmware to use your router as a bridge. I *think* you can set it up as a repeater but it will cut your throughput in half, which shouldn't be a problem if the signal sucks anyway. I know for a fact you can set it up as a bridge and connect everything through the ethernet ports though.

Cantenna and high gain antennas would probably be your best bet.

Econo-Box

I looked into that cananntena and its cool and all just read up on what Card you need to use cause you do have to Hardwire that cananntena into the PC somehow and there arent too many common cards with little RF anntena thingys on them.

MAJORAHOLE

i use the wrt in home to have wireless internet to my xbox, works good

HomeMadeTurboz

The WRK54G which I have now, is NOT firmware upgradeable. As per dd-wrt.com some wrong chip or something, basically it was a piece of garbage.

So I went out to look for a bridge today, but no computer stores were open as it is a holiday around here. However Best buy was open, and they had the WRT54G on sale as it looks like they are discontinuing carrying it in favor of N stuff. So I picked that up, brought it home, upgraded the firmware to V24 of the dd-wrt and built a client repeater bridge network. Now all of my computers have the internet, my vonage home phone works, and it all to this point has cost me $63.95 and a couple of hrs of screwing around. I really wanted an excuse to get a new router anyway, as the other one the internet would just randomly stop working a few times everyday. The only way to cure it was to go to the router and unplug it, wait 15sec or so and plug it back in. That was a hassle but not worth buying another router, however this was.

Now my reception is still far from perfect (avg 22mbps, good signal, about 35%) so I will be building a Cantenna, probably this coming up weekend, as this week will be a zoo.

The best part is I can borrow this internet, re broadcast it in a secured form ...

HomeMadeTurboz

Well I got finished up a little earlier then I expected today, so I went home to finish the pringles and start making a cantenna. So after I finish the pringles and a couple beers, I decide I should make a shopping list. So I find a website that shows me all the ---- I need, tells me to look at what I am hooking it up to for connector type, and I go to my new router, and the antenna's are ------- BUILT IN. So I'm like WTF hit up google and sure enough V8 and later all have permanently attached antennas for cost savings.

So now it appears that I have to:
a) have to open the unit up and surface solder on some external antenna connectors, or
b) get another version of this router off the internet.

The first one wouldn't be bad, but it has been a long time since I have done any surface mount soldering, but I guess if I ---- that up I can just get an older one off ebay or something...

At this point the cantenna maybe done before the router is, as all of my soldering stuff is still packed away from the move. I will take pics of both as I slowly get this accomplished.

On a side note the dd-wrt firmware is great, has WAY more ---- then I know what to do with. Not that, that is saying a lot. :1

pistol

youre actually accomplishing something

p.s. love my new lawn ornament