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Post date: Jun 15, 2017 8:33:19 PM
One of my neighbors — for whom I was supposed to be acting as ‘owner representative’ during construction, discovered that neither the designer nor the builder of his house made provision for communications to get from the street to his house. Digging a trench after the house was completed would cost $800 plus the cost of running the wires in the trench. And, soon, the ground was frozen so even that would have to be delayed until Spring.
So, in one of my unthinking gallant moods, I said, “Let’s get internet via WiFi from the Common House.”
So I madly researched long-distance WiFi on the internet, and decided that we could install a ‘sector antenna’ much like the ones used on cell phone towers on the top of the Common House, pointing across the meadow which our houses encircle. I bought the antenna and the associated radio (WiFi is just specially encoded radio) and cable. I also switched our internet provide from the phone company to the local electric coop, which provides internet via optical fiber cables to the street by our houses.I visited the coop offices and arranged for the installer to pull the cable into the Common House. I bought a new WiFi router to replace the DSL modem. I realized that the coop now considered us as a ‘small business’ rather than a ‘shared residence’, and that meant a higher monthly price, but also higher transmission rate. So now we had really fast internet within the Common House.
I installed the new sector antenna on the roof, but could not demonstrate that it was working, so took it down and carried it into the local computer shop. Turns out that ‘Electric Sheep’ (as they are called) sells this brand of equipment and were able to prove that it was actually configured correctly (for only $45).
Our houses are all covered with stucco. The stucco is reinforced with steel wire mesh, which quite effectively shields the inside of our houses from electromagnetic radiation, including WiFi and cell phone signals. (I get one bar indoors.) This means I would need an antenna outside running to a WiFi router indoors. I chose an antenna with a radio, because the signal from an antenna is very weak and the cables usually long, weakening the signal even more.The first antenna was a TP-Link Pharos device, meant for enterprise installations. It required a Windows machine to configure, but the first house had a suitable laptop so I did not give it much thought. I got it working and the residents are pleased.
The second house relies on my MacBook to configure, so I switched to Ubiquiti equipment. I got everything installed, including a shelf for the WiFi router in the middle of the house, but could not configure everything to work together. Sigh.
Turns out that Electric Sheep is a vendor for Ubiquiti equipment and two of their staff can do this. Tomorrow, after a house call, we will see what mistake I made. Next time I’ll buy the equipment directly from them and have them configure it before I install it.
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