| Well the wireless bridge was fun, but also limited. With some prompting from my online technical support team (thanks J3r3my), the wireless connection over to Kendra's laptop is now a Universal Wireless Repeater (UWR). | ||
 | The photo to the left is from my crawlspace under the house. The wireless DLink router and the Motorola cable modem are set up here. This provides wired access to my desktop computer on the other side of the house and wireless access to the WRT54G Linksys via the external directional antenna which is pictured on the right. The previous configuration only allowed a connection to the router via an ethernet cable. This was somewhat limiting given that the laptop has wireless capability. In order to set the girls free to roam about their new abode (almost wrote adobe there), we set out to find a better way to get them wireless once again. The instructions for setting up the UWR are here. The external antenna you see here on the right was purchased online at ebay from Data Alliance. The quality of the wireless signal has gone from around 12% up to over 35%. |  |
| Now the girls are free to roam about. In fact, if they sit out on their patio, they can pick up the signal direct from my antenna without the use of the repeater. We are now free to move the router as well. The final resting place for the router will be in a "window with view". I was a little surprised that my laptop while behind the directional antenna still receives a very strong signal. Here is a diagram showing the output of the antenna.  When configuring the DD-WRT firmware for UWR on the WRT54G router (wow that's a busy sentence, eh?) I found that in order to create a connection using encryption, both routers had to use the same encryption and the same encryption key. I am not certain that this was the factor that made the final connection successful, but that is the way it is set up now and it works. Enabling the web gui access to the control panel allows me to monitor the UWR router from my desktop computer (on the DLink network) even though it is on a unique subnet. | ||
Monday, October 29, 2007
Extending the range
Monday, October 01, 2007
Love can build a bridge... but so can Linux!
Just what is a Wireless Ethernet Bridge, and how can I go about building one? This is the question that has plagued me for quite some time. Well if you consider two days quite some time that is.
Let me begin with a little background. Being thecheap frugal Mennonite, when my sister-in-law moved in next door (technically, three houses away across the back yard), I figured there ought to be a way for us to share an internet connection. We both own wireless routers and I have a high speed internet account. What if we could make the wireless routers "talk" to each other.
That's where my old friend came in to help. I simply put the question to my friend and in less than half a second, I had the answer. Don't believe me? Check out the suggestions from my friend right here. On the right side of the screen you will notice something like 0.18 seconds. Google is amazing isn't it?
Well much to my delight, I found that Google was able to help me with "connecting two routers together". The only problem is that at least one of the routers has to be a Linux based, Linksys branded WRT54G model router with firmware version 4 (v4) or earlier. So off to my sister-in-law's to check out the router. It is in fact a Linksys, but it is v5. Well, it almost worked.
My friend (i.e. Google), would not allow me to give up that easily however. Another search resulted in a website dedicated to open source firmware for Linksys routers. Upon further investigation, it appears that www.dd-wrt.com has firmware versions for updating v5 and newer Linksys routers. Woo hoo!
OK, the game is afoot. A little reading at the DD-WRT Wiki and a little experimenting with completely erasing a router's programming... and voila. We have a DD-WRT programmed Linksys WRT54G which is capable of wireless ethernet bridging!
So, what does this all mean. Simply stated. My wireless router operates like virtually every other $100 wireless router. It takes the internet source from the high speed modem and allows computers plugged into it or computers with wifi capability to access the internet. The modified Linksys router, accesses my router wirelessly (like a wifi enabled laptop) and sends the signal onwards via it's LAN ports on the back of the router.
The only obstacle now, is that the range is on the verge of being too great to maintain a consistent connection. So in order to extend the range, I came up with a couple of possible solutions. The first was just a bigger antenna on my wireless router. The second solution was a directional antenna. The last solution considered was a WINDSURFER antenna booster. Which is essentially a satellite dish for a wifi router. Something like this:
Essentially it is tin foil, cardboard, glue and there it is. Total cost is about 5 to 10 cents. For now, we are using option 1 which is helpful, but we are in the process of building the antenna booster as well. To build your own WindSurfer, check this out. This directional dish can actually extend your range and provide you with more privacy (by blocking the signal from going behind the router).
I will post actual pictures when we have completed the entire project.
Let me begin with a little background. Being the
That's where my old friend came in to help. I simply put the question to my friend and in less than half a second, I had the answer. Don't believe me? Check out the suggestions from my friend right here. On the right side of the screen you will notice something like 0.18 seconds. Google is amazing isn't it?
Well much to my delight, I found that Google was able to help me with "connecting two routers together". The only problem is that at least one of the routers has to be a Linux based, Linksys branded WRT54G model router with firmware version 4 (v4) or earlier. So off to my sister-in-law's to check out the router. It is in fact a Linksys, but it is v5. Well, it almost worked.
My friend (i.e. Google), would not allow me to give up that easily however. Another search resulted in a website dedicated to open source firmware for Linksys routers. Upon further investigation, it appears that www.dd-wrt.com has firmware versions for updating v5 and newer Linksys routers. Woo hoo!OK, the game is afoot. A little reading at the DD-WRT Wiki and a little experimenting with completely erasing a router's programming... and voila. We have a DD-WRT programmed Linksys WRT54G which is capable of wireless ethernet bridging!
So, what does this all mean. Simply stated. My wireless router operates like virtually every other $100 wireless router. It takes the internet source from the high speed modem and allows computers plugged into it or computers with wifi capability to access the internet. The modified Linksys router, accesses my router wirelessly (like a wifi enabled laptop) and sends the signal onwards via it's LAN ports on the back of the router.
The only obstacle now, is that the range is on the verge of being too great to maintain a consistent connection. So in order to extend the range, I came up with a couple of possible solutions. The first was just a bigger antenna on my wireless router. The second solution was a directional antenna. The last solution considered was a WINDSURFER antenna booster. Which is essentially a satellite dish for a wifi router. Something like this:
Essentially it is tin foil, cardboard, glue and there it is. Total cost is about 5 to 10 cents. For now, we are using option 1 which is helpful, but we are in the process of building the antenna booster as well. To build your own WindSurfer, check this out. This directional dish can actually extend your range and provide you with more privacy (by blocking the signal from going behind the router).I will post actual pictures when we have completed the entire project.
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