Newbie question on rural setup

[cabsandy]

Hi all,
First post so be gentle :D
I've been using Linksys WRT54G's for a few years now, using a combination of Sveasoft and DD-WRT. The DD-WRT stuff I like, a lot, but I've came across your stuff through some conversations about a rural wireless broadband poject here in Scotland http://www.tegola.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
To that end, I'm moving soon, to a rural area where the dominant force is ADSL-and slow ADSL at that. I'm spoiled at the moment as I have a 50Mb :shock: cable modem so it will be a long fall from grace.

I have access to towers (I'm doing some work this week to calculate how good/workable it will) but I'm looking to shoot LOS 7 miles ( 11k ) for the intial link and then regenerate this signal into an AP for local access-might be a few or only one, dont know yet so may be some mesh stuff involved. One thing to throw in is that if the towers aren't high enough, I may have to do it in 2 hops.
My question is what would/could the best way to do this with the Ubiquiti product set? I'd like to maintain a decent throughput (+10Mb/sec) but not too worried about 99.99% uptime-the link wont be used for life and death situations! The bullet range looks good but not too sure how this works at an AP level.
One last thing-I'm in the UK so who's the best resellers?

cheers

cab

[WHT]

Don't use mesh and don't use AP-WDS to AP-WDS mode repeaters.

Set up a pair of Bullet 5 radios at both ends of your 7 mile link. At the tail end location, use a Bullet 2 with an 6 dBi omni antenna, or a Nanostation 2 with 12 dBi antenna.

[InoX]

...or a Nanostation 2 with 12 dBi antenna.
or use a ordinary router with a 5dBi omni, it's better than NS2 with external antenna.
My point is that everything is better than an NS with external antenna. (from what I've tested)

[WHT]

Or the Pico with the included 6 dBi antenna. The way I figure a Nano 2 with 12 dBi antenna means you would have 12 dBi antenna gain less the 2 dB feed loss, and that would meet the FCC certification of use with an external 10 dBi antenna.

We found out a year and half ago that the Nano 5 with an external antenna was a "very bad idea" <- a movie quote that Brian often uses.

[cabsandy]

Cheers guys,
So you all agree for the long haul 11k link the Bullet 5 with external antennas is definetly the way to go but it's a personal choice of what to use for the AP re-broadcast?
I only ask because I have about 5 WRT54G's with DD-WRT installed with 9dB omni's on both left and right antenna points. Sounds like they would do the trick? As I'm UK based, FCC rules don't apply :-)

I'll have a search for the best UK reseller

cheers

cab

[WHT]

9dB omni's on both left and right You only need to use one antenna. The second antenna is for RX diversity, but its not MIMO diversity. Personally, I haven't seen any difference using one or two antennas, but you can always try to see if it works better for you. I forget which is the secondary antenna, but the Linksys Users web site can you.

[cabsandy]

9dB omni's on both left and right You only need to use one antenna. The second antenna is for RX diversity, but its not MIMO diversity. Personally, I haven't seen any difference using one or two antennas, but you can always try to see if it works better for you. I forget which is the secondary antenna, but the Linksys Users web site can you.

I've tried various combos and having both seems to work better-for me, anyway. They are only about $5 each and I think having 2 makes it look better-lol :wink:

cheers
cab

[WHT]

To paraphrase Woody Allen, "It immediately doubles your chances for a better signal"

[lncommunications]

Hey cabsandy, you wont find many UK resellers at the moment, even though we dont resell at the moment if you need any Ubiquiti kit give us a shout im sure we can help as we buy from a main distributor in bulk.