Problem

James and his family own property that has two houses on it. The one at the back of his lot is used as his business offices. The house on the front of the lot is the family’s house. The houses are 300+ feet apart (too far for Ethernet). James would like to utilize the Internet connection from the office in his house as it is provides a higher bandwidth. In addition to that, he would also like to be able to “work from home” on his laptop.

Current Configuration

The business office has a 1Mbps Internet connection via wireless. A parabolic antenna receives a line-of-sight connection from a sending antenna across town. A router resides in the office that serves DHCP to the connecting PCs. One desktop PC shares folders and printers on this network. There is also one laptop that is used by James. He hard-wires into the network as there is no wireless in the office.

The house has a 384kbps Internet connection via DSL. A D-Link wireless router is connected to serve wireless and DHCP to the house. There is a PC hard-wired to the D-Link router. The wireless is wide open (no security at all) and serves as a connection for guests with laptops. Security is not an issue at this time as the property is far enough from dense populations, and the neighbors are not a threat.

Idea Iterations

1. Back near the summer of 2008, James approached me with the idea of connecting the two houses in order to utilize the higher bandwidth from the office. He mentioned an old, dormant gas line between the houses that created the perfect conduit for cabling. We began to investigate using Ethernet over CAT-5e or CAT-6. He already owned a 1000′ box of CAT-5e leftover from wiring the office. I knew that CAT-5e/6 Ethernet had a distance limitation of 328 ft at 100Mbps. During my next visit, we measured the distance needed to cover, and it ended up being well over this limitation. I was worried that if we did all the work to run the cable, that it would be in vain and packets would be dropped.
2. James found an acquaintance that did optical fiber work. We began to research the costs to run fiber and convert it to CAT-5e Ethernet at each end of the house. The costs to accomplish this versus the costs of CAT-5e were nearly double and outside of his budget. We returned to the drawing board.
3. I don’t recall what triggered my brain to wireless. I think it was a mixture of the struggles at my house to get maximum signal from every corner (including the garage) and my exposure to the wireless configuration at my parents’ bed and breakfast. It came to me one day, and I began to research directional antennas. Within a few hours, I found multiple blogs, forum postings, etc. with people that were connecting long distances with directional antennas pointing at each other. Three times a charm?

Solution

I searched high and low for the best prices for wireless antennas, cabling and equipment to accomplish this project. Eventually, I found the best deal with L-Com.com and their Hyperlink brand antennas. Their 2.4GHz Yagi, directional antenna and 20-foot RP-TNC to N-male cable were a perfect match for the project requirements. The antenna is a 2.4GHz 15dBi Yagi Antenna, model number HG2415Y-NF. It is shielded by a UV-stable & UL flame rated radome. It offers a 30-degree beam-width (which means the antennas don’t have to pointed PRECISELY at each other) and DC short lightning protection. The 20-foot cable is model number CA-RTPNMA020. It features RP-TNC Plug and N-Male ends made with 195-series coaxial cable. This allowed us to connect the antennas to the wireless components to a place inside the buildings. I read online about using the Linksys WRT54G wireless router and the WAP54G wireless access point to create a wireless bridge. Some people have obtained wireless bridges spanning up to 1.5+ miles with these Linksys products and Yagi antennas.

The configuration of the wireless components was fairly simple. Here is the procedure that I followed:

1. Download and install the latest firmware for both the WRT54G and WAP54G.

WRT54G Information Gathering

1. Access the router’s setup page from a web browser via the default IP address (192.168.1.1)
2. Login using the User Name and Password defaults are:
   username – “admin”
   password – leave blank
3. Click the Status tab
   

   Click to enlarge

4. Write down the WIRELESS MAC Address and the Channel Number values.
5. If you would like to use WEP Encryption, click the Wireless tab, then Wireless Security sub tab. Note the passphrase.
   Note: WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) is not compatible with wireless repeater mode. You must use WEP Encryption if you wish to use security options.
   

   Click to enlarge

WAP54G Repeater Setup

1. Plug the WAP54G directly into one of the WRT54G’s numbered ports.
2. Access the WAP54G setup page from a web browser via the default IP Address (192.168.1.245)
3. Login using the User Name and Password defaults are:
   username – leave blank
   password – “admin”
4. On the Setup page, set the Channel value to the same channel value as the WRT54G router from step 4 above.
5. If WEP Encryption is being used, click Enable for Wireless Security. Click Edit Security Settings and enter the same Passphrase as obtained in step 5 above. Click Generate to populate the WEP key fields.
   

   Click to enlarge

6. Click Save Settings.
7. Next, click on the AP Mode Tab.
8. Select Wireless Repeater and enter the WIRELESS MAC Address obtained in step 4 above.

Notes:

• This procedure was adapted from Linksys by Cisco’s online Knowledge Base article #231 written on 1/26/2006.
• If MAC Filtering is configured on the WRT54G, no extra configuration is needed.  Wireless clients will still need to be added the MAC Filter list of the WRT54G, but the WAP54G does NOT have to on the list.
• I highly recommend MAC Filtering over WEP Encryption as WEP has been cracked: http://www.google.com/search?q=cracking+WEP
• As mentioned before, WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) is not compatible with wireless repeater mode. You must use WEP Encryption if you wish to use security options.

Next was installation of the antennas. First, we simply placed the antennas on ladders with relative line-of-sight to test. Once we were able to establish connection, we mounted the antennas to the side of each house with the included hardware. James bought a 12″ x 1-1/4″ pipe and mounting plate to mount on the family house. This enabled the antenna to align with the office’s antenna which was slightly offset from the main house. The 30-degree beam-width allowed us to roughly line up the antennas without need of special alignment equipment.

We ran the pigtails in through existing holes in the wall into the attic of the house and the garage of the office. This is where the “Aggie engineering” took place. To get power to the router and access point, we ran extension cords across each location. The final touch was to run CAT-5e Ethernet cables to pre-existing wall plates that James had previously installed when his electrician did the initial wiring of the office.

Residual

We neglected to double check the printer sharing from his laptop. Unfortunately, communications to the printer did fail. James has to hard-wire into the office network when he is down there, and just deal without printing when working from the house. I will be double checking that on our next visit. Other than that, everything is running great after two days!

Share/Save

This machine in particular is a 1277 rev B. Here’s the specs.:

• Processor/Cache
  AMD K6-2 433MHz, 100MHz Bus, 512KB L2
• Memory
  64MB SDRAM (soldered), 1 SO DIMM 144-PIN SDRAM slot (upgradeable to 192MB total)
• Storage
  IDE Controller, 4.8GB Hard Drive, 3.5″ 1.44MB Floppy, 24x CD-ROM
• Display
  13″, SVGA (800×600), 24-bit (16.7 million colors) display
• Video
  Trident Blade 3D AGP, Shared Video Memory (UMA), External Display up to SXGA (1280×1024)
• Audio
  Sound Blaster 16/Pro, Integrated Microphone
• Input Devices
  Keyboard, Trackpad
• Telecom
  PCI Fax modem, 56Kbps, ITU V.90/Hayes AT command set
• Expansion
  CardBus Type II, 15-pin HD-15, 4 PIN USB Type A, RS-232 DB-9, IEEE-1284 DB-25, PS/2 style mouse/keyboard, RJ-11 phone line, 3.5mm headphones, 3.5mm microphone

I did not have this specifications list in front of me at the time, so seeing the 433MHz K6-2 and 64MB of RAM was funny to see at first. Onto the rest of the story. So, Tamara’s father asked me to clean it up and make it run smoothly so that Tamara’s mother can use it for gathering information on trips, etc. I power it up and the first thing I notice is…

That’s right folks Windows 98. Now I know what you’re thinking, “but that machine came with Windows 98 from the factory.” Well, it did. I know that. I just expected to see it running Windows 2000 I guess… So, it’s not a shock, but I haven’t seen this splash screen in so long…

So, the machine is running quite slow. I hop online and pray that I can find memory for this thing. Luckily, it wasn’t that hard. I found a handful of places still selling memory for this dinosaur. I ordered the largest DIMM I could (128MB). It was about $20 after shipping. This upgraded the machine to 192MB total.

I proceeded to attempt to install Windows XP. This was a mistake as XP was just about as slow as the old, hosed up Windows 98 (despite Microsoft’s published minimum requirements). So, I found an old Windows 2000 disk and slapped on that OS.

I also ordered a Linksys CardBus Type II wireless card (model: WPC54GX) from eBay for ~$20. I got it installed without a hitch and was then able to go to the Internet to get the latest Service Pack installed. I noticed a very annoying sound coming from the speakers when the wireless card was actively transferring data. After some brief Googling, I found that Compaq had a flawed design where the CardBus slots of their 1200 series and many other Presario models lacked proper EMF shielding. The sound card was susceptible to this EMF noise. The two solutions:

1. Try to get a plastic-coated MU-Metal shield package from Compaq/HP
2. Plug in some headphones

Having headphones plugged in to the laptop routed the noise to the headphones. I found an old pair of headphones that I did not care about and cut the wires off of the plug. This proved sufficient for hiding the noise while using the Internet… better than nothing I suppose.

Now the machine is up and running and ready to go with Windows 2000, Office 2000, McAfee Anti-Virus, Malwarebytes’ Anti-Spyware, upgraded RAM, and a wireless card. It appears to run very smoothly. I forgot how nice and paired-down Windows 2000 is compared to XP and Vista. I really miss the simplicity of the operating system. It will make an excellent laptop for data gathering on the road.

Share/Save