Modern technology for the common geek...wifi and cellular in a metal box!

MotoSook · 03:23 AM

My barn is maybe 600 feet worth of LAN cable away from my router at the house. No way I'm I going to get wifi through the steel and insulation (foil backed) of the barn. Same goes for cell service. I get 4-5 bars of 4G service at the house but in the barn it's iffy if I get one bar or no serivce.

I recently built an office in the barn for when I work from home or just to hide out from the wife and kids. But I needed broadband and cell service.

What to do...dig a trench and run CAT5 cable...heck no. I'm not that young and stupid. So I get to looking through the Cyberguy catalog and..bam! Solution. Ubiquiti Nano Bridge point-to-point radios with a router on each end. I don't need a router on the barn end, but I had an old G router sitting around and the guys wanted wifi when we have our poker nights in the barn. How hard can it be, it should be plug and play right?...no fuchen way. The instructions for the radio didn't come with the box and online instructions were not even correct. So after an afternoon of frustration, I gave up. Later that, night the kids in bed, I messed with the two radios 10 feet apart and figure out how to configure them myself. I'm rather proud of this since I'm no IT guy. Got it working and between the house and my office, no signal degradation at all! I have crappy 2M DSL service so not losing any signal quality was welcome.

So for $160 and some cables, I avoided trenching and moaning! One other problem was that one radio seemed to like being the bridge more than it like being the station. Weird, but it works great now.

Ubiquiti NanoBridge M Series, MIMO Outdoor Antenna NB-5G22

For cell service I figure a simple booster would work. Simple wasn't cheap. I figured $100 would do it, but the ones that looked like they were designed for my space (6000 sf) are over $400. Amazon had a deal on one that didn't promise wide coverage, and the reviews were kinda mixed...the negatives were really a turn off, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I expected maybe 10 feet to the inside antenna for full booster relay...

So tonight 10:30 PM 25 degrees out, I drilled a hole and some screws...and voila! 2-4M download and 1.5-4 upload on my 4G phone. And it works 100 feet away from the interior antenna! Seems like the steel skin of the barn is helping contain the signal. So for $230 I'm blown away by the performance.

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-Desktop-Adjustable-Booster/dp/B0014KOB6Y

Didn't think it'd be this easy...but modern technology makes it possible!

Aurel · Aurel's Garage

There was a thread on this very topic recently:

Wi-Fi transmission

MotoSook · 02-27-2012, 09:09 PM

Cool. Will post on it for additional info.

mikester · 02-27-2012, 09:51 PM

I would run fiber from the house to the barn then install a switch at both ends with the house end connecting to your what nots in the house and the barn end connecting to your what nots in the barn plus an access point to support your wireless for the poker buddies.

Money's no object right?

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

CAT5? What is this, 1992?

I just rewired my office to CAT6. We're 1GBs

As far as your setup, for the LAN connection I would have setup an wired access point in the barn and a couple of Cantennas. Pringles cans work well.

MotoSook · 09:48 AM

I hear ya on the CAT5. The radio will do CAT6 too, but since I have limited service out in the boonies, the CAT5 is just fine. My DSL is maxed out at 2.5M download and maybe .4M upload. It's crappy as hell, and ATT can't seem to do anything about it. Cable is unavailable where we are. You don't get country paradise and hi-tech all in one apparently.

With the 5+ year old G router, I get the max data speed (DSL speed) on my phone when in wifi mode, so no sense going with higher capacity equipment when the restriction is at ATT.

This morning, I got out of the crapper room, filled my coffee mug and strolled down to the office...a 3 minute commute, and started my day in a nice warm office with my desktop tapped into the company network. Dialed the conference line on my cell, and Bluetoothed the call. For all the other parties cared, I was sitting in my office 35 miles from the house. Come summer, I can even toss a fishing line in the pond while I work...paradise at 2M speed

MotoSook · 09:58 AM

Here's the office I just completed before all my crap messed it up...I have to add more shelves, but there'll be room in there for a full size couch and a couple of motorcycles too

(The big window on the right is a sliding glass door (new but with a tiny crack in the vinyl so the manufacturer replaced) that I got free from a guy. The floor is a Craigslist find, $0.50/sf. The desktop is a Craigslist $100 find, cherry laminate with a cherry cap, already in the L-shape I wanted)

VincentVega · 02-28-2012, 10:03 AM

Quote:

600 feet worth of LAN cable

100m limitation

Nice work, we dont have these problems in the 'burbs.

mikester · 02-28-2012, 10:09 AM

Also, maximum distance on Cat5/6 is 100M (330ft). You're too far for copper basically. Running fiber would not be any harder. You would need a fiber patch panel in the house and one in the barn. Fiber doesn't need to be expensive. The patch panels are cheap. You can use some inexpensive Cisco 3560 switches off of Ebay too to get Gig speeds. Then the most expensive part would probably be the transceivers for the fiber on both ends. You shouldn't need any long reach lasers so that would keep the cost down. Then you wouldn't have to worry about weather or any interference from whatever is happening in your neighborhood. I suspect that likely isn't an issue however if you have that much land. The cost of the point to point wireless gear you're talking about and what I'm talking about are comparable and the fibers will be more reliable and provide significantly more capacity.

MotoSook · 02-28-2012, 10:29 AM

Mikester, I already spent $180 for the point to point equipment and installed it. Works great!

MysticLlama · 02-28-2012, 10:48 AM

Those radios are going to work just fine at that range in all but some really crazy weather. (so long as he didn't mount them with duct tape or something)

MotoSook · 11:01 AM

The bridge radio is clamped onto the bracket my satellite dish is mounted on at a protected corner of the house below the roof line. The station radio is mounted on a bracket that's screwed to the barn. It would have to be a strong wind to deflect them enough to degrade the signal.

I had the station radio wired up inside the barn to test signal amd surprisingly I got a strong signal with the barn door closed! I read that the must have clear Los so I was very surprised. I could have mounted the station radio inside yhe barn it seemed.

MysticLlama · 02-28-2012, 11:20 AM

They are both powerful and sensitive, with totally clear LOS they will go multiple miles. 600ft is cake.

mikester · 02-28-2012, 11:41 AM

Sweet! I do love wireless tech... What exactly did you use?

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikester

Also, maximum distance on Cat5/6 is 100M (330ft). You're too far for copper basically. Running fiber would not be any harder. You would need a fiber patch panel in the house and one in the barn. Fiber doesn't need to be expensive. The patch panels are cheap. You can use some inexpensive Cisco 3560 switches off of Ebay too to get Gig speeds. Then the most expensive part would probably be the transceivers for the fiber on both ends. You shouldn't need any long reach lasers so that would keep the cost down. Then you wouldn't have to worry about weather or any interference from whatever is happening in your neighborhood. I suspect that likely isn't an issue however if you have that much land. The cost of the point to point wireless gear you're talking about and what I'm talking about are comparable and the fibers will be more reliable and provide significantly more capacity.

Or EMF when Iran explodes a nuke over Kansas...

stealthn · 02-28-2012, 06:09 PM

Just wait for the solar flares....

MotoSook · 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikester

Sweet! I do love wireless tech... What exactly did you use?

As I stated in the original post (sorry if I wasn't clear), I used the Nanobridge M5 directional radios. The dishes are about 12" diameter and the radio is in the horn of the dish. You just run CAT5/6 cable to the horn and configure it like you would a router. Much much easier than running cable (fiber or otherwise). They are so cheap I don't know why anyone would trench. If my barn was close to the home router and the barn wasn't steel skinned, I'd get one of the other Ubiquiti products to repeat/boost the signal outside and skip the cable and trench.

Like this: Ubiquiti NanoStation Loco 802.11B/G Wireless CPE Router NS2L

My time to trench and run cable..much more expensive than $53.

MotoSook · 02-29-2012, 02:52 PM

I wonder though James-James if my steel barn will provide protection from EMP and solar flare

.... I'm doomsday proof! lol

island911 · 02-29-2012, 04:06 PM

A barn, eh? ...So then build a silo to go with. -It will look great. WiFi will be great ... Just make sure it has the same aspect ratio as a Pringles can. . . .

MotoSook · 02-29-2012, 04:42 PM

Wife is not a prepper but last weekend she mentioned that we should build a concrete structure in our hill as a fun project of a guest house. I told her I had a few projects that I used a local outfit for some concrete vaults 11 inches thick wall. Cylindrical 10' diameters sunk into the hill would be nice silos.