Passive repeater for Wifi

I need to setup a passive repeater for a wifi link I am settign up. I basically need to use a passive repeater to "bounce" a signal around a building to my friends place. I got permission from another friend who I have a LOS (Line of Sight) shot to and from there I need to "bounce" the signal from their house to my friends who has a LOS sight shot to the house I'd put the pssive repeater on.

Bacically I need to get the signal from point A to point C. Point B will be the repeater. The distances are as follows but they are rough guesses.

Point A to B --> 300-400ft max
Point B to C --> 50-100ft max

Time for a little ASCII Art. (Ignore the black, I couldnt get the spacing to work right..)

-----X <- POINT C
-----|
-----|
-----X <-POINT B (Repeater)
----/
---/
--/
-/
X
POINT A

I plan on getting the antennas from HyperLink Technologies. I'd like the pasive repeater to be as small and unobtrusive as possibe, but I can use the bigger strongers antennas @ point A and C. So how would I go about making a passive repeater. I saw an article on the net where this guy talked about his he mounted in a tree but the article is old and he didnt saw how to make one.

If any of you could be of help I would greatly appreciate it.

AFAIK, there is no such thing as a "passive" repeater... by definition, it would require power to clean up the signal and retransmit it.

It could be fairly cheaply done with 2 wireless bridges... power them both, connect them both together with a crossover cable, turn off any DHCP or other features, set them to different channels, and attach the antennas and your set.

I'm sure there's all-in-one devices, but that is the cheapest mass consumer way.

EDIT: You could do it with a linux box too

su root said:

AFAIK, there is no such thing as a "passive" repeater... by definition, it would require power to clean up the signal and retransmit it.

It could be fairly cheaply done with 2 WAPs or wireless bridges... power them both, connect them both together with a crossover cable, turn off any DHCP or other features, set them to different channels, and attach the antennas and your set.

I'm sure there's all-in-one devices, but that is the cheapest mass consumer way.

Click to expand...

Hmm. I think I need to find that article and maybe you could help me clarify what he did since you seem to know alot about alot of aspects of networking. I know for sure tho he put it in a tree w/ no power and he used 2 Radome-Enclosed Yagi antennas. By how he did it confused me since like you said you'd probably need power.

I'll see if I can get that link and I will post back.

It could have been solar powered or something... but it would definately require power. To recieve, you could do something crystal-radio like, and use no power, but for cleanup & retransmission, you would need power.

Well I found one of two articles. The 1st one talks about his connection even more. I had found this site months ago with good 'ol google, lol.

Link 1: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010712.html

Im still looking for the 2nd link which is supposed to be archinved a week or two before so im looking, lol.

EDIT: Found Link 2, I was looking in the wrong part of the archive, lol.

Link 2: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010628.html

Its an interesting read too.


Also, I can also power the repeater but I'd like it to be as cheap as possible and not use power if need be. The goal of this project by the way is so my other friend can share my cable internet with me (it will be encrypted and all so noone else can use it) and mostly for our lan gaming. Since I got a few other neighborhood guys currently connecting to my Wifi link with my stock antennas and we play alot but I plan on getting the 108Mbps Dlink (over my 22Mbps Dlink) and extending the range for my other friends who live right next to my one friend @ point C. Man that was a nice long run on sent. lol.

EDIT 3: I dont think the articles talk about the passive repeater he makes later or earlier. So I will go looking some more, lol.

Ahh ha! I finally found the one with the repeater. The other two links are still a good read in my opinion even tho they are a few yrs old, this one was from Feb. 2002 so its more recent.

Linky: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207.html

The instructions are in the links section of that site:
http://www.netscum.com/~clapp/wireless.html#passive

As far as I can tell, they're just connecting two antennas together to "bounce" the signal.. horrible signal loss is reported though..

Could tha signal loss be due to that perticualr antenna, like what if you bought two and connected them together? Other wise I may have a LOS to my friend since I can see him from my roof but its easier with a repeater due to me not having to mount a small parabolic or yagi antenna on my roof.

Also, Thanks for all your help su root. Youve given me and probably others readying alot of helping info.

Edit: I used that site when I built my own yagi antenna, I have hyet to test it but its built, I just need to get the pigtail, lol.

You'll get massive signal loss no matter what you use. In order to get a better signal, you'd need an active repeater (that would clean up and rebroadcast).

At my school, we have one access point on the 3rd floor that gets no signal on the first floor (due to the school's structure). In order to use it, we need a line of site out the first floor classroom to a glass building about 10-15m away, which bounces the signal between us and the third floor.

As long as they are very directional antennas, it shouldn't be much of a problem. The idea is that it's just a direction change for the signal... it is accepted in one side, and through electromagnetic propogation, it is sent out the other antenna, in refocused in another direction.

I may just do a active repeater since I dont want much signal loss. Would it work if one side I used a parabolic and one side I use a yagi? It doesnt matter right?

Also, how could I bridge the two locations? I want to use the D-Link router thats 108Mpbs and is 802.11g.

For anyone else that's reading on, here's the rest of the conversation, carried out over AIM:

Session Start (su root:SniperXX): Tue Dec 30 19:03:27 2003
[19:04] SniperXX: here i'll post my last reply in the thread
[19:04] SniperXX: I may just do a active repeater since I dont want much signal loss. Would it work if one side I used a parabolic and one side I use a yagi? It doesnt matter right?

Also, how could I bridge the two locations? I want to use the D-Link router thats 108Mpbs and is 802.11g.
[19:04] su root: just reading it now
[19:04] SniperXX: oh
[19:04] SniperXX: lol
[19:04] SniperXX: k
[19:06] su root: as long as it's an active connection, I don't think there would be a problem with using 2 different types of antennas...
The only problem that I forsee is finding 2 108Mbit wireless bridges, I don't know how common those are
[19:07] SniperXX: is there software I could use?
[19:07] su root: what do you mean? to get it to run at 108?
[19:07] SniperXX: you have seen the D-Links that go 108Mbps right?
[19:08] SniperXX: I am planning on using those so speed is fast since I will use it to transfer big files from time to time
[19:08] su root: yeah, but I havn't heard of software that would emulate that... you would need some d-link 108-ready bridges
[19:08] SniperXX: ic
[19:08] su root: another way could be to load up a linux box with 2 of them at the "B" point, and use that to bridge them
[19:09] su root: actually, a windows box could do it too
[19:09] SniperXX: what if I broadcast with the 108Mbps router and the revieving end have a 108Mbps NIC with a new antenna and from that comp on the revieving end I had serve the network with like lionux
[19:10] SniperXX: for IPs and stuff
[19:10] SniperXX: since the 2nd local is using the wireless to revieve the signal and then put it into wired since most of the comps are on wire right now
[19:12] SniperXX: would that work? or did i not make 100% sense, lol
[19:13] su root: not sure I understood you, but the setups that I would recommend are:
108router <> 108NIC bridged 108NIC <> 108router2
or
108router <> 108 wireless bridge <> 108 wireless bridge <> 108router2
[19:13] SniperXX: ok
[19:13] SniperXX: 108router <> 108NIC bridged 108NIC <> 108router2
[19:13] SniperXX: thats what im thinking
[19:13] su root: you can bridge 2 NICs with windows XP or linux (and probably others)
[19:14] SniperXX: but i looked from my roof a bit ago and i got a LOS so what if i went
108router <> 108NIC bridged 100wiredNIC <> 100 wired switch
[19:15] SniperXX: basically since i cant run a wire to the 2nd place id use wifi as that connection to the other switch
[19:16] SniperXX: that would work right?
[19:16] su root: that would work, but the wired/wireless bridge computer would have to be on all the time. You could simply with:
108router <> 108wireless bridge <> wired lan
[19:17] SniperXX: but if there isnt a wireless bridge out I could just do it with my Win2k Advanced server VIA box
[19:17] su root: win2k advanced server doesn't have the ability to bridge connections (it can ICS them, but that's a whole different can of worms)
[19:18] SniperXX: ahh
[19:18] SniperXX: it would work with regular 200 pro right?
[19:18] SniperXX: *2000
[19:18] su root: nope, XP is the first OS to have bridging. Linux has had it for a while
[19:19] su root: i believe win2k3 server has it though
[19:19] SniperXX: ahh
[19:19] SniperXX: ok
[19:19] SniperXX: i got 2k3 server but thats that 6month trial thingy they had
[19:19] SniperXX: (Link: http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=10#)http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=10#
[19:19] SniperXX: thats a wireless bridge right?
[19:19] SniperXX: if so i will prolly just use that like you pointed out 1st
[19:19] SniperXX: lol
[19:20] su root: That's an access point, it kind of does the same thing.. let me see if I can sum it up for you:
[19:21] SniperXX: so i can go 108 router <> 108bridge <> switch @ location 2
[19:21] SniperXX: right?
[19:21] SniperXX: "The DWL-2000AP can be configured to perform in any one of four modes — as a wireless access point, as a point-to-point bridge with another access point, as a point-to-multi-point wireless bridge, or as a wireless client."
[19:23] su root: In every wireless connection, you need a "server" and one or more "clients"

Wireless Access Point: For large networks, provides wired network access from wireless.
-server

Wireless Bridge: this is a client, which connects to a wired network. (connects 2 wired networks through wireless)

Wireless Router: this is like an AP, but for home use.
[19:23] SniperXX: ok
[19:23] SniperXX: thx
[19:23] su root: yeah, then it can be switched to bridge mode...
so:
router <> bridge/ap <> switch
[19:24] SniperXX: ya those were my last questions i had after reading up on this type of long rage wifi for almost a year and after messing with my 22Mbps DLink wireless router and 22Mbps NIC
[19:25] SniperXX: thanks for the help, i now know 100% my plan of how i will implement this
[19:26] SniperXX: I plan to do a write up for ppl who want to add range to their router or bridge two houses or locations
[19:26] su root: cool
[19:26] SniperXX: well I can just post this all if you dont mind
Session Close (SniperXX): Tue Dec 30 19:26:28 2003

Thanks for sharing SU - makes for easier reading. For me, I think it is the first time I've seen an AIM log posted.


At any rate , Sniper, if you get this working, and sounds like it will, don't forget to lock things down security wise on your extended WIFI.

Ya I got sercurity down since I precticed with my 22Mbps setup and read those articles on the forums.

jajmon said:

For me, I think it is the first time I've seen an AIM log posted.

Click to expand...

Lol!