Post date: Feb 17, 2017 1:19:27 AM
Recently I have been trying to use our community internet connection and WiFi to reach nearby houses. We (a neighbor and I) installed a sector antenna (they look like the ones on cell phone towers — tall and narrow) along with a 5 GHz radio (called a WiFi Access Point) on the roof of our shared common house.
[This is a compromise, as WiFi currently uses both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. If needed, I believe that I can add a second radio + sector antenna for the 2.4 GHz band. The router should handle which frequency is actually used.]
That did not go as well as planned. The cable, threaded through the building and out onto the roof, to which I affixed a plug on each end, was not well made. The outdoor end had one of the eight wires not connected. I had to hire a helper to find and fix that. Then the radio failed and had to be replaced.
I configured everything and installed the new radio, plugged it in to the cable, and now it works. Well, sort of. Our past internet provider is the phone company, and it seems that their service to our common house is flakey. I can record speeds of 12 MBps and 0.12 MBps within a few minutes. We plan to switch to fiber optic from the local coop who offers much higher speeds for the same price as the phone company.
On the other hand I get a reasonably strong WiFi signal all the way across the meadow within our circle of houses.
So (since this was all started by one new neighbor (who could not get a trench dug for his Internet cable) I found what seems to be the perfect solution for his rooftop. It is a very directional antenna with built-in radio transceiver that is powered over Ethernet and is built for outdoor installation. That means we can put it on his roof, aim it at the sector antenna on the common house, and (hopefully) get good internet speed. He already has a conduit from the roof into his workshop (intended for photoelectric panels) and an ethernet cable from workshop into his house. He also has an old but serviceable router that he can install in the workshop and a new WiFi router that he can install in the house.
The parts are on order, so we should see next week.
If this works, we will duplicate the client installation on at least one other house, and maybe a third (when construction is finished).