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Re: [LUG] wireless musings



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Steve Marvell wrote:
> I was wondering, ...
>
> What experiences have people got of wireless ethernet at home?

Lots

> If your hub thing is at the front of the house, does it work in the
> garden?


Hub thing - don't have one but I assume you mean a Wireless Access Point.

Now would that be front garden or back?

> How is it with thick walls?

Bad, although I think water and metal are the real killers.

I have one PC with poorly sited card (back of a PC facing a wall), no
antenna, in upstairs Office and it illuminates the whole back garden and
house adequately, go next door but one and the signal is barely
detectable, drop a 5 dbi antenna on each end it is usuable again
although not great.

So one ordinary house wall fine, but two or three no chance without
antennas. But what's an ordinary house wall, some plaster board is lined
with Aluminium foil, this won't help.

The tecnology is "line of sight" anything else is fortuitous.

For a house with a WAP, you can use ethernet cabling to locate the
access point where ever is most "central" to your needs from a radio
perspective. Similarly multiple WAP on the same wired ethernet allow
roamin from one to other, so a VERY big house could have two WAPs wired
together instead of wireless bridging - remember use wires where
appropriate.

> Can you have something at the back of the house to chain it to the
> garden?

Yes, bridging is supported by some access points, 802.11b supports 250
odd devices on one LAN, so chaining a few access points together to
extend range is pretty common, but check it is a supported function of
the Access Point, as the cheap ones often don't (although some can be
reprogrammed if you like unsupported firmware - most people don't).

I don't have to hand details of the algorithmns used, but I recall the
limitations are fairly similar to wired ethernet in this regard.


> Can you put a big extension ariel in the loft?

Yes, but if it is just your garden a small antenna in the loft may well
suffice unless you have a very big garden.
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