[JofCore]

I am trying to set up a 4 mile WDS link and I've got the link up enough for the radios to see each other, but my signal is still kinda weak enough that I'm seeing significant packet loss.

Here's my setup:

WRT54GL on each end (12548M NEWD Eko)
(mounted outside on antenna pole w/external enclosure)
24dbi grid antenna
aprox 4 miles between antennas; one end is pretty open and clear, but the other end does have some trees around it.
The antennas are mounted on the roof of each building (2 story house height) on a 5 ft-ish pole.
so shooting through some tree tops.

I was aiming the antennas by reading the wireless status info from dd-wrt and got to where things seemed better, but still pretty bad. Then I started tinkering with the channel and the TX power. When I switched from Ch1 to Ch11 the signal improved, and I turned up the Xmit power all the way and that also improved my signal.

However, it's still not good enough for a solid connection.

the signal as DD-WRT reports it is something like:
signal noise SNR strength
-82 -67 -15 14%
-81 -69 -12 16%

So at this point I'm wondering if I would need some sort of wifi amplifier to get my link usable (something like http://www.ayagroup.com/product.php?productid=17203);

or do I need to try to fine tune my antenna aim now that I have the power all the way up?

Any thought, suggestions, etc appreciated :)

thx

[JofCore]

Oh, I forgot to mention; those signal readings above are from the end w/out the trees. (also, I forgot to mention that I am currently running w/out encryption just to try to establish the signal)

On the far end (with trees), the signal isn't as good(I don't have access to it right now, so I'm going from memory...), only around 11% or so I think.


So I guess at this point I'm wondering if this is even possible w/out additional hardware / signal boosting.

Is this a feasible distance for a wrt54gl? Or are those trees going to kill me...? Or do I just need to fine-tune my antenna alignment?

It's so close right now, but not quite there yet... I'm getting around 2-11% packet loss still, so not usable yet (but a whole lot better than the 50-70% I was getting... )

[jjjacer]

The first thing i could think of is check what type of cable you are using to the antennas. Ive done about a half mile link with standard RG-58, a custom biquad, and a satellite dish. But i got alot of signal loss with the RG-58. usually its best to go with lmr400 as it has alot less signal loss. Check out the link below for a listing of different coax cables and what loss in db per meter of cabling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_cable

otherwise if you want to get an amplifier you can get the same one you listed a little cheaper from geeks.com

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ARG-2301A&cat=WLS

Also have you tried changing antenna diversity so that the router uses the grid antenna as the primary one?

Also you might be able to get a wireless spectrum analyzer to find the sweet spot on the channels.

this is the one i use, its cheap but useful.
http://www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=37599&core_cross=SEARCH#page=page-1

Other than that make sure that all the connections are corrosion free due to weather. and to make sure they stay that way you can use a silicon spray on all the connections.

[JofCore]