BB FANS

This is one bit I'm rather green on.

I have a fast wired network throughout the house ,but have just bought a laptop with wireless networking so I'd like to be able to sit on the patio at the bottom of the garden using the wireless feature.

First off which is the best way to add wireless networking to the existing network ?
A bridge maybe ?
I can get a PC card for under £10 + P&P or a Belkin Bridge for under £40 (maybe less on Ebay).

I don't want to change the existing router.

Next is the range as I need 200 - 300 feet coverage so I need an external aerial or at less be able to mount one in the roof. But as I have a mast the other-side of the wall with a defunct aerial not being used on it it would be ideal for a network aerial. Also I might add a SL300i Philips media Streamium receiver in the living room as I have a large video collection on the main PC.

And I will have security set to prevent others accessing it.

All help gratefully received ,hopefully before I buy the wrong things .

Found a loverly colinear antenna on Ebay. Going by the fact that this is a great RF location reception could be miles using one of these !!

Don't seem to be many single antenna routers and then they don't say if they are removable. I know D-Link are but as most are ADSL and due to a bad experience with a D-Link router/modem I don't really fancy them.

I have a Linksys cable router and have noticed lots of them on Ebay but they are twin aerial models making using external aerials expensive assuming they can be removed.

Another thing I've noticed is the areial extention leads are quoting RG58 as Low-Loss but at that frequency the losses would be very high !! It's alright if you using it for CB and may be Low-band amateur bands like 6 and 4 metres but at VHF and UHF etc the last thing I'd call it was low loss.

Any idea if the aerials are 50 ohm or 72 ohm ? As I have half a reel of CT167 10mm super low-loss satellite cable which would be very useable at 2.4GHz. Might even have some Westflex 103 if I looked.

For a media server a PCI card would be the easiest route ,but to have internet without the main PC turned on the Wireless access will need to be connected to the router.

I'm still looking on Ebay etc but I can see I'll buy something and then discover I doesn't do what I thought I would so please if you have any ideas they'd come in very useful.

I know I said I don't like D-link but I'm looking at a D-Link AirPlus Xtreme G DWL-G810 Ethernet Bridge as an option.

The other one was a Linksys Bridge. The D-link is max 108Mbps and the Linksys 54.

Both have detatchable aerials both sound easy to configure. The D-link is £50 + P&P and the LinkSys is £56 + P&P.

There are Buffalo Bridges but they don't say if the aerials are detachable.

Main thing is Wireless 'g' and the aerial bit. The RF noise in this room wouldn't help the signals get too far which is another reason for a external one.

I still like the idea of the high gain colinear ,plus there appears to be a shortage of non-directional external aerials. I can get Yagi's for less than half the price of the Colinears but the beam width is narrow at around 20 degrees which is pratical ,it's fine for setting up a link between buildings but not in this case.

Hopefully I've made the right choices.
I bought a TP-Link 108MPS Super G Wireless router for £30 and a 9db Omni-Directional vertical outdoor aerial for another £33.
With a bit of playing around with the IP addresses I should be able to use both routers or use one of them with the spare Hub both ways I get 7 Ethernet ports plus wireless.

Have noticed that there are two ad-hoc networks not far away going by the built-in aerial etc in the laptop.

One uses a Belkin router and the other one some one has changed things and has their name as the router ID. Shame the later one didn't spend a little more time and set the WEP keys.

I'm playing with Streamium receivers at work and am tempted to get a Philips SL300i as they are cheap due to their age. And the ones that have a working Internet side and can be updated are Divx 6 compatible while the ones that don't work on the Internet aren't compatible.
These (the 300i) are WiFi Media receivers. You basically run server software on your PC tell the server where to find music and video files then you install the receiver either via Wireless or Ethernet in another room and you playback the files via your TV.

The current version from Philips retails in PC World for £200 which is rather steep for what they are. While the Sl300i I'd hope to get for less than a quarter of that.

For watching video in another room they are more stable than the 2.4GHz video senders .Depending on the server software you should in theory be able to access live video via an input device.

Wireless Network installed and working fine.

The slowest part was releasing the rusty nuts on the mast clamps to remove the old aerial before installing the 8.5dbi Vertical aerial for the network.

The router was very quick and simple.
Set IP to Dynamic ,wireless type to 108MPS Dynamic ,changed the name and IP of the router.

The Linksys cable router is now plugged into the WAN of the wireless router.

And I've set a 128bit WEP key.

Almost plug-n-play. Less than 5 minutes setting up the router and around 15 minutes installing the aerial.

Spotted another unsecure network on the laptop so that's 3 without what every the route hears.

I have discovered that if the wireless network is on channel 6 that it interferes with one of the Freeview digital multiplexes and our house and next door loose the multiplex with ITVs ,C4 ,E4 etc.
Have now set to down to 54MPS and channel 1 and all seems OK. Must have a sub-harmonic or just a spurious carrier that appears in the middle UHF TV channels.

One worth remembering though if you setting up Wireless and your Freeview disappears.

remember kids, if you can do all that, you will be as happy as Larry

The TP-Link router is the simplest Wireless router I've installed. The only real problem has been the interference to Multiplex 2 (UHF TV Channel 45).
And I think I know of another case on the same multiplex.

A couple of people I work with live on a caravan park at Billing and they found that signals on Channel 45 were missing but we couldn't work out why.
Today I asked one of them who is one of the engineers if anybody nearby had a wireless Internet set-up and he said yes and they have just got a new box and the channels have come back.

I'm curious as to how a 2.4GHz transmitter is interfering with a tv channel around 650MHz as the tv channel frequency isn't a direct multiple of the Wireless frequency .

Mines working OK and the neighbour rang up a short while a go to say that their digital channels had come back. I told them earlier tonight a little lie as I had an idea what the problem was so I told them about periods of interference from analogue channels on the same frequency causing problems and that it normally didn't last very long. This is actually true and does happen but it wasn't this time. They are also happy now.

I think I know where you can find the answer. Try here

Well with nobody coming forth with ideas or advice I had to do my own research Tasty.

Mission accomplished ,I'm sitting on the patio with the laptop and the wireless signal says 'Good'/'Very Good'.
That just leaves about 5 hours of battery life to play with and dodging the showers which are forecast.