Wireless Networking 2 houses

[squirrel]

Heres the situation:

My friend who lives a few houses down, wants to connect wirelessly to my house so we can share stuff. What would be the easiest way of doing this, and recommended hardware at a fair price. Good thing is I dont think there is any trees in the way. Any guides/links to this appreciated

 

[ScrnScrm]

what sort of distances are you looking at?

 

[squirrel]

Maybe a 100, im not at home so cant really say

 

[th0rn]

You might be able to do that with two linksys wrt54g with firmware upgrade to able 2 increase output power. If not you might need some small directional antenna's but that probably wont be necessary.

I got a link without any extra antenna's yesterday of about the same distance but it was not a good connection.

 

[Karnaugh]

increase output power for 100m? ...

I do around 2km with my wrt54g, have not tweaked the output power - just a 12dBi yagi.

 

[andres101]

you could build a DIY omni antenna that will easily give you that range.

 

[squirrel]

Thanks for all the help so far.
Could someone please give me an overview of ALL the hardware we need, there is one computer at each house, dont want to make this too costly aswell

Thanks!

 

[th0rn]

increase output power for 100m? ...

I do around 2km with my wrt54g, have not tweaked the output power - just a 12dBi yagi.

Increased the power using the standard antenna that comes with the linksys, no LOS. AP indoors.

Thanks for all the help so far.
Could someone please give me an overview of ALL the hardware we need, there is one computer at each house, dont want to make this too costly aswell.

There are many to do this. The cheapest good connection would probably be two pci wifi cards connected to a 12dBi yagi. Using Ad Hoc mode (Direct connection). Would probably cost less than R2000 in total. Probably still overkill. Some cards may be able to do that distance without an antenna.

 

[squirrel]

Thanks th0rn

Can you recommend any specific products I can take a look at?

 

[Razer0]

http://www.jump.co.za/Products/Product.asp?ProductCode=PR004386
and
http://www.jump.co.za/Products/Product.asp?ProductCode=PR004498

I think skydog on this forum can get both for cheaper tho, not sure..

 

[Davidj81]

It would be interesting and a good experience to make your own antenna, but can I suggest buying one rather. You will get up and running faster and it will probably work out cheaper in the long run.

 

[peterheins]

I think linksys wrt54g is the best solution for your work along with the directional antennas which could be the array antennas.
=================================
peterheins
FSBO