I will be deploying a wireless network on our campus, and thanks to some advice from the Beginners forum, have been advised to use sector antennas and CPEs. I pretty much have all our residences covered in theory, however due to the large amount of trees, and my lack of experience in wireless networks of this size, am not sure how far the signal will be strong enough for your average user’s laptop (b/g built-in) to connect. We will also be deploying wireless security cameras in several locations.
I have attached a map with 3 sectors and 1 CPE to reach the furthest residence (I admit, I don’t have my protractor and my freehand drawing sucks, but I was thinking 90 degree sectors). Can anyone make any recommendations? I have lots of ideas floating around in my head but they all seem to be overkill… However I’m fairly certain I’ll need to drop in another access point or three at the edges…
Outdoors, if you build it right, you’ll have coverage over about half of the intended area with just the laptop cards. Not just half the distance, in some areas it should go the full length.
The trees and building is going to kill 2.4GHz and if the laptop can get signal in much of that area the AP will not be able to hear the return signal.
If you had a small repeater on each building top you’d have a better shot at full coverage with laptops as clients.
Great, thanks for the advice! I’m wondering if maybe I got a few RB411’s/R52s and put them in an indoor case with an 8dBi dipole antenna and placed them inside some of the houses, if that would work as well as throwing them on the roof. Otherwise, I’d have to get more outdoor enclosures and probably some omni-directional antennas. Price is a slight consideration, but the less mounting on rooftops I’d have to do, the better…
8dBi indoor may work, but I wouldn’t bet on it and I’d hate to have to keep an eye on it.
Starting to get a little more expensive, but have an external antenna with a bit of LMR400 and the AP indoors with another card serving the building.
You get the rx signal clarity of being outside the building, the signal in the building is stronger and less likely to interfere with the rest of the network.
What I may do, is just go with the outdoor access points at first, and find out where the residences have no signal, and order extra equipment then, taking it one stage at a time. They can go outside for access if there’s a problem at first
