The problem: a remote building, far from our Infrastructure (about 1000 feet). Worse, no conduit in the ground between the two. Even worse, a parking lot on that ground, making it rather unpractical to ever install conduit. What to do?
Here's the overhead view of the problem, from the Google Map view:
Five or six years ago, we looked at wireless solutions, which at the time were all 802.11a. And expensive. TENS of thousands of dollars. And not terribly fast. We settled for a few standard 1FB lines from the street and no practical integration with our phone system or network. Fortunatley, we didn't need much out there, so it wasn't a big problem.
Fast forward to this year. Our Summer Camp program starts in a few weeks. We'll have something like 10,000 children in attendance, and a lot of the activity will be taking place out near that remote building (the pool house). The desire for connectivity resurfaced.
My, how a few years changes things. We now have connectivity, using 802.11G, running the full 54Megabit, and it's quite reliable. What's really nice is the cost. The solution consists of a couple of standard Linksys Access Points, high-gain antennas, Power over Ethernet, some mounting brackets, and a bit of fancy engineering by Danny Ybarra and Jose Hernandez. The result is even pretty! Everything is in plain site, yet invisible. Total cost? Around $500 for all the hardware.
Here's a view of the main building, as seen from the parking lot between the two building. Do you see the antenna?
OK, how about a closer view:
Not obvious yet? OK, here's one more:
And the blatenly obvious:
Here's the view of the pool house, as seen from the roof of the main building:
And a few successive closer shots:
The result? A functional phone (and more to come)
Here are a few of the innards:
Pieces and Parts:
Hawking Hi-Gain 14dBi Outdoor Directional Antenna Kit less than $100 each
Hawking 30' Hi-gain Antenna Cable about $30 each
