Just curious how far your Wi-Fi access point is from your desktop computer

9 i

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I'm not getting into legality. I'm getting into being a good neighbor and being polite. Do you get this?

Where I'm at there are 1,300 acre ranches. That doesn't mean that wifi is going to hit the property-line and stop. Hence my reiterations..

You get someone who lives in Kansas and 40 acres to a transmitter means nothing. That signal may travel for dozens of miles. As I have mentioned before I can pick up the San Onofre Vistior's Wifi signal over

60 miles away. That means I could, if I so chose, attempt to hack a network that is a 2 hour drive away. That's crazy.

The more powerful your transmitter the greater the audience of people who may decide to attempt to penetrate your network. If I can pick up your SSID, that's all I need to being a WPA2 attack.. $50 in Amazon cloud computing time and now I get to use your internet to write death threats to the President. Guess who's door the Secret Service is going to kick in?

I don't care if you think that's an unlikely scenario. Security must be practiced proactively. Reactive security isn't security, it's damage control. There's no reason to expose one's self to threats that one does not need to.

I know of several 24 GHz links that is getting trashed by cellular backhauls using the same unlicensed technology. The problem is that getting a PtP link licensed and properly coordinated in a dense urban or mountain top environment is becoming increasingly difficult and lengthy. Service providers want something they can install quickly and 24 GHz currently meets most of the requirements. The interference is coming from other 24 GHz radios that are along the line of sight, or co-located on adjacent rooftops, adjacent towers, or mountain top.

For short hops, the big move is to V-Band, 60 GHz, WiGig, or 802.11ad or maybe the new and improved 802.11ay. What makes these work is atmospheric oxygen absorption. At short ranges, the signal is there. However, put enough distance and air in between endpoints, and the signal drops quite rapidly. 802.11ay will allegedly work to 300-500 meters range under ideal conditions (no rain, no snow, no fog, etc):

"802.11ay WiFi @ 60 GHz (Millimeter frequencies)"

"60GHz Wireless:

MikroTik RBLHGG-60adkit (60 GHz 802.11ad):

MikroTik RBSXTsq-60ad (60 GHz 802.11ad):

MikroTik antennas and range selection:

Ubiquiti has it's equivalent AirFiber 60 product, but it's only available to early access program customers in the US. Some clues in the FCC ID data: Ignore the Cyrillic and click on the photo for a photo slide show:

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

So far most of the gear I have come across is rated at 2 miles or less or in a single instance I'm aware of, Ubiquiti's AirFiber 24 can do about 5 miles. I'm not saying you're incorrect, just that I suspect interference will be the exception and not the rule. A cell tower that's trashing someone's link is also probably having it's own link trashed, or at least degraded.

For very short hops. My Mikrotik 60G is rated at a mile. I haven't deployed it yet, but from what i understand if one wants it to punch through rain, then one probably should not exceed 3/4 mile and 1/2 mile might be more realistic during heavy downpours.

Everything I'm hearing about 24 GHz has been positive. I don't doubt that there will be some cases of interference, but with WISP gear (I don't know what the cell sites are using) having a 2-5 mile range is a hell of a lot better than the nearly unlimited range of 5 GHz.

UPDATE:

While these devices all come with debugging tools, it's useful to let users know that on Android (but unfortunately not on iOS), there are modern powerful debugging tools that help you debug your WiFi signals:

For example, I just snapped these screenshots of one app in use today:

If you know of any iOS apps that do the same, please let me know:

As it would be nice on the larger iPad screen if such iOS tools existed.

These Android free ad-free tools are useful to test temporary bridges:

With and without the horns attached to the high-gain antennas:

Where it's your choice whether to use the horn alone or in combination with the antenna, which turns the omni horn into a narrow beam WiFi extender:

Which, depending on various factors could be miles of point-to-point range: (where, as Johann Beretta noted, that screenshot is with AirMax enabled)

Modern WiFi debugging apps are useful when you set up APs at home, where, for example, you can instantly convert a dumb switch to a WiFi AP & then test with your Android phone how strong the signal is around the house:

Or, if you have a spare old router, debug the extension of its range: Given that laptops are notoriously anemic when it comes to WiFi range.

You can also debug when you add bridge a desktop without WiFi to WiFi

And you can see the difference in range on your phone, when you have both:

Yes, there are already UNIX-like tools inherent in the router software:

But they only work for an individual transceiver (radio & router):

And, they're different software for each transceiver brand:

Where, unfortunately, iOS just doesn't have this modern app functionality:

In summary, when you set up these devices, your Android phone instantly becomes a very useful modern WiFi testing tool, where if you know of any iOS app functionality on the Apple App Store that does the same thing, please let me know as I've looked in vain for years on end for such modern app functionality to exist on my much larger screen iPads.

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Using mobile devices to their fullest functional capabilities every day!

Hi Mike,

I understand that every situation is different, and, one of my key points on versatility ot good tools is that even your situation is different today than it might be five years from now (where you can repurpose stuff you bought if it's versatile).

Understood. The beauty of the switch (or router) being separate from the access point is that you can place the access point anywhere you like.

One thing you might consider, Mike, which works GREAT for me because I don't want to 'climb through walls' is you can position the access point OUTSIDE the house pointing back at the house!

This idea works GREAT for me!

I'm nestled into the side of a hill, which helps, as I can see the roof from my back yard, where every instance is different topographically, but even on a flat yard, you can still paint the entire house with WiFi simply by snaking a cat5 cable to the clotheslines pole, so to speak.

The geometry works out such that one side of the house only has a wall and windows to penetrate (out here, windows are solar reflective/absorptive by code).

Understood, Mike, where it's refreshing to converse with someone like you who has real needs and thinks of real solutions instead of having to deal with the too many trolls who outnumber us 20:1 who simply post on Usenet for their own amusement.

Given your needs are simply that the antenna needs to be in a different location from the router/switch, I'm curious of you've looked at those routers where the antenna itself is easily detachable and relocatable?

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The beauty of good tools is that they work in a variety of situations.

This is where Usenet potluck sharing shows its value:

So I looked up those suggestions for Mike, where the first Amazon hit was:

$61.84 & FREE Shipping o Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X Advanced Gigabit Ethernet Routers ER-X 256MB Storage 5 Gigabit RJ45 ports Where it was interesting, in the picture to see not only a POE in (which I have on my switches also), but also a POE out (which is useful as I feel good tools should be versatile to fit many situations over the years) o Marketing: o Specs:

Here's a review of the EdgeRouter X (aka ER-X):

The first hit of the ER-X-SFP was this: $92.99 & FREE Shipping o Ubiquiti Edgerouter X SFP - Router - Desktop - Black (ER-X-SFP)

This is what I love about the idea of coupling a fast but inexpensive switch to a separate access point, such as is shown in this picture:

Note: You can put that NanoBeam NBE-M5-16 either on the POE out port, or, you could put it on ANY port if electricity is near the location of the transceiver, where the advantage of the POE out port is that you the transceiver can be placed in a location that doesn't have mains power.

The one nice thing about all this Ubiquiti equipment is that they're like hammers and screwdrivers, in that whenever you have a need, they seem to be versatile enough to do the job well.

I don't have the speed needs that Mike has, but I love plugging "stuff" into a switch where, for example, this is a radio I'm erecting outside that is connected to a switch inside, which will paint the house from the sides:

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While Usenet is replete with trolls, there are some adults who share value.

UPDATE:

Given this was my WiFi & cellular test situation at various locations: o abdelrahman.wifianalyzerpro o uk.co.soapysoft.wifianalyzer o com.keuwl.wifi o make.more.r2d2.cellular_z etc. I ended up purchasing this setup to test out, which just arrived: o