My New Tower
 

Just put the top section on tonight.

Going to be trying to get a WiFi Link due to unavailability of DSL, or Cable at my house :-(

60Feet Of Rohn 25 Guyed at 45 Feet.
Yes Top Rod is crooked (just a poor attmpt to attract lightning away from My WiFi gear))

http://gallery.me.com/dremd/100197/I...12502023020001

MobileMe Gallery

Hope to Post from it soon.

You're clearly insane...

In the best possible way!

Anybody know of a good PTZ IP camera with a very long lens for a reasonable price? I really like the pics and want to be able to have them live.

wtf

Explain further.

dremd -

wow. That deserves a woot. WOOT!

CarloSW2

Well Broadband is not available at my house (no DSL or Cable) so I am stuck with Satellite Broadband (Which SUCKS). Both DSL and Cable are available 1/2 mile away. I am going to put up a 24 DBi Parabolic Grid Antenna 2.4 GHz 24 dBi Die-cast Grid Antennas connected to a Wrt54Gl Linksys by Cisco Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54GL Runing tomato Tomato Firmware | polarcloud.com (which allows usage as a wireless client + site survey). From there I SHOULD be able to see several peoples WiFi's and attempt to make some finical agreement for services.

That's all on hold right now because I have lost my WRT54GL Err.

I have failed at connecting to an existing Access point :-(

Now in negotiations with a neighbor to upgrade his Access point and add a 14 DBI Panel antenna.

http://gallery.me.com/dremd/100197/I...12507391500001

You need to put a Whisper 100 at the top of that. :-)

That sucks, nice pic though.

Seriously, a half mile and that setup couldn't see it? You were pointing down 1.3 degrees?

This guy was connected at 1.2 miles with just a cantenna on one end (though I am quite certain I am not telling you anything you don't know already)
Super Cantenna Review -- Extend Your Wi-Fi Network Range (pics)

I'd like to unfortunately I need to put my TV antenna on top of the tower (rotates) and that more or less eliminates the use of horizontal axis turbine.

Now if anybody knows of a turbine that doesn't have to be at the "top" or a nice omni directional TV antenna (i'd rather an omni tv antenna); then I'm all game.

However I am only 0-3 feet above a tree whose top is only 30 feet away; im fairly certain that it would hurt my output pretty substantially. Now if I get my hands on some more scrapyard (nearly free) tower sections then I have a GREAT spot for a wind turbine :-)

I'd guess I was pointing down about 1.3 degrees. I basically aimed it by getting an assistant to stand in my victims yard with my iphone and WiFi Fo Fum while I peaked the dish for highest strength. I could only get it down to about -91 db, but was able to connect the iphone to the tower. unfortunately the AP didn't show the remote A/P in the site survey; but I could see (-99db) my own access point while placed in their yard. That neighbor was not willing to add any gear to their setup (regardless of compensation).

I'm having DSL connected to an abandoned house (which I have permission to use) on Wednesday!

The Upsides
1) .25 mile DIRECT line of sight
2) Power is available
3) I have very easy access to the property to repair any problems which may arise.
4) I don't have to pay for my 8 watts of electricity !
5) I don't have to pay Wild Blue $89 a month for crappy internet anymore!
6) My internet service will be !!!!!!!SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!!

The Downsides
1) I have to pay for phone service (no DSL direct) for which I have no use for. ($18 a month) I can live with this.
2) I have to pay for the entire internet + phone bill $51 per month. (WAY BETTER THAN $89!)
3) Only 3 meg service is available with 512 up.
4) I had to grease some wheels at the phone company to get a connection at all.

I'm loading up an ammo box with a salvaged (free) UPS that had a dead battery which I hacked up for size , a 17.5 amp hour 12 volt SLA battery (should give nearly a full day of backup power), a DSL modem, a WRT54GL, and a 14 dbi patch panel antenna 2.4 GHz 14 dBi Flat Panel Antenna - 12in RP-TNC Plug Connector - HG2414P-RTP. Should be a killer WiFi link with my conditions.

I'm pretty excited!

oh; and btw I figure this is green; my satellite modem is a HUGE power hog. I'm estimating that overall I will have a 40 watt reduction in base power consumption. (that makes it about a 1,000,000 year pay back in power alone ;-)

Phone service is up!
DSL carrier signal is up!
WiFi link is up! (needs some tweaking, poor signal still, something just seems "wrong")
DSL modem is stuck in UPS (4 days for 2 day service!!!!!!)

signal issue located; top mast is floppy; the grid is swaying in the wind.

Second page loaded over new DSL!
First was http://www.speedtest.net/result/550077031.png

HAHA I saw this and thought new tow-er as in truck.
Ive gotten nearly 2 miles of of reused dish network/direct tv dishes.
What are you using for feed line? RG-6 is preferable. check that the antenna is the correct length. Also make sure you're not using 75 ohm camera cable instead of 50 ohm antenna cable.

Your not the firts person to think that. lol

My last WiFi link was 3.4 miles; but we were using factory built antennas (24 db) We considered the Dish re-use setup; but decided on factory built parts for reliability.
I'm just using the cables included with the antennas; less loss. My radios are within 12 inches of the antennas (less loss).

Posting over the WiFi Link!

Looks like I have a bad ethernet cable :-( only able to connect to tower radio at 1/2 duplex. which is an issue because I can't connect it to my indoor WiFi gear (can't switch LAN ports to 1/2 duplex) going to get that sorted out soon.. . . . . .

Cable issue was just a bad end (I suck at crimping cat 5 while hanging from towers).

Ended up cutting 2 small trees to maintain service during rain storms.

My DSL (at the modem) is more like 2.7 down and .3 up; oh well, beats the hell out of satellite.

Our area will be upgraded to Uverse "soon" and I'll have 10 meg available then.

I always forget how huge of a performance hit WEP takes on a marginal link (almost 50%)

My You Tube addiction is easing.

I really really want a PTZ cam for my tower, but can't justify $500.

Total power draw (both ends) is about 5 to 6 watts (about 75 for satellite); maybe this makes up for the 2 trees that had to loose their lives, but not so much.

Still amazes me when I sit down on the couch and the internet doesn't suck; many many less trips "out" to use the internet.

All and All the best project I've ever done.

How much did it cost to put up? Is there enough wind there to make a windmill out of it?

Tower sections $25 (scrap yard FTW!)
Bolts for tower sections $15
Cable $50
Concrete $40
3x 1'x10ft schedule 60 pipe $ unknown(went with steel order)
Time 1 billion hours
$130+

+ WRT54GL $60
+ Parabolic Grid $Already had
+ Ammo Box $ 12
$72
$202 +for my end ? + an unbelievable amount of time + energy


Wind isn't very good on the tower; i'm only a few feet from the top of a very large oak tree about 30 feet away.


Windmill is in the works; but not very soon, nor on this tower . . . .
I do wish

Damn you had to go high for WiFi. We only went up 12ft I think

Well; the origional plan was to steal internet from 1/2- 3/4 mile away from existing access points.

If I knew my final setup; I would have done lower; however I am just above 3 trees that I would have to go straight through if I had only done 50 feet. . . . .

It that because of the over-head?
 

Does it take a lot more bits to use WEP vs using Open mode??
I have a buddy across the road who has a very weak signal, resulting in
a lot of slowness. We are using WEP, which I understand is very easy to crack now..

Would my 'user' do better without WEP??

I totally don't know.
If it were me I'd test with security off, test with differant security settings, and if all fails upgrade radios/ antennas.

WEP is essentially useless. It can be cracked offline in 60 seconds using easily-available tools. If you're looking for security, use WPA or WPA2. A powered directional antenna at the AP can make up the speed difference. (I'm sure it's only 10-15% anyway.)

Without WPA, anybody within range of the antenna can capture packets unnoticed and see what's going on, or even use ARP spoofing to do man-in-the-middle attacks.

Using DD-WRT
 

WEP might not even be needed in this neighborhood. My stock antenna is located in
such a shielded location, it's just about invisible in all directions but one.
My buddy picks it up weakly with his laptop, but it's slow unless he comes outdoors.
A hacker would need to park at the end of my front sidewalk, unless he used a 12' dish.

Maybe I could get away just using a MAC filter??

MAC filtering and SSID hiding are also ineffective against a hacker, although they work against neighboring PCs that "accidentally" grab your signal (Windows is famous for this.)

If you can't get a signal outside of your property line, then turn off WEP and fuhgeddaboutit.

I'll switch to MAC filtering to keep the random laptop from trying to connect to the wrong system.

There is no line-of-sight to anywhere from my router..
It covers the inside of the house just well enough. My Roku box located
back in the den is just able to do HD.. Good nuff..

As clarification my setup is running in WDS only mode, with no SSID broadcast, with MAC address filtering on (no reason, but might as well), and with a randomly generated WPA key.

That gives me about a 15-20% performance hit. WEP is what actually puts the BIG hurt on my link.
Bear in mind

remote end (with DSL) wireless is broadcasting at 80 mw through a patch panel (15dbi?) and is receiving from my tower at -80dBm with a -97dBm noise floor for a "quality" (strength above noise floor) of 17dBi

Tower end (my house) is broadcasting at 25 mw through a 24 dBi parabolic grid
and is recieving from the remote site at -75dBm with a noise floor of -95dBm for a "quality" (strength above noise floor) of 20dBi

The resulting link gives me about 8 Mbps from remote site to my tower and about 3 Mbps from my tower to my remote site in good weather. I drop to about 3 Mbps down and 1 Mbps down in severe weather. All of which is irrelevant because I can only get 3 Mbps DSL which is typically 2.5Mbps down and .4 Mbps up.

Dang! You made me read up on WDS.. Wireless Distribution System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting stuff. Reminds me of the old Packet radio days when I was a more active Ham.

That bottom line:
"WDS may also be referred to as repeater mode because it appears to bridge and accept wireless clients at the same time (unlike traditional bridging). It should be noted, however, that throughput in this method is halved for all clients connected wirelessly."

Halved? That made me do a double take, until I remembered your connection to the WWW was a DSL. :o

I have the cheapest cable they sell at RCN. It's 5 Mbps. Just enuff.. :thumbup:

Well it is only halved if you have 3 nodes. I only have 2.
I would be using Bridged mode, but then I loose all WAN functionality on my router. In my situation I don't loose any performance vs bridged, now if I added another hop over the same radio . . . . . .

My uncle rocks double and triple hops over WDS huge performance hit (22 meg cable), but it works so . . . .