I want to get the WiFi signal from the barn to a field which is about 1km away. There is a clear line of sight from the barn to the field.

I need some help with the router hardware… Un-sure if I need 2 wireless routers or 4… I think I would need Wifi grid aerials, the one I have found says from 4km – 56km, which seems a bit far!

Has anyone done this, or can point me in the right direction?

Cant you just use a couple of directional wifi antennas and treat them as powered aerials to your existing router and wifi card receiver?

Using large anntenae we managed a 1.5 km link from a ferry to shore. Antennae were around 4 ft high, powered and I’ve no idea of the cost. I also don’t work for that company any more, so I’m not being terribly helpful I’m afraid.

I believe that there are directional antennae which can manage longer distances, but we were restricted becasue the ferry was moving at the time

Build a cantenna (basically a yagi aeriel in a Pringles can). http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448

Other potato chips are also available.

More ideas,

http://microblog.routed.net/2008/05/31/howto-make-a-simple-and-cheap-yagi-antenna-for-wifi-applications/

Years ago me and a mate got a link between our houses using directional antennae attached to linksys routers, distance is about 2.5 miles, so certainly doable. Speeds will drop though.

I loved Cantennas. I made some out of dog food tins to broadcast from my house to my shed. I was going to make and sell them and called them TIN-TERNETS, but I didn’t.

I now use the Homeplug Powerline adaptor things, well, before I moved to ThinkTod.

But yeah – Cantennas.

this is worth a read, this guy tried many different things:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/03/not_spot_no_longer/

would 3g broadband work?

probably wouldn;t be much slower than long distance wifi and cost isn’ that much if it’s not in use 24/7.

I bought one of these:
Wi-Fi Grid Aerial

I also have a cantenna style aerial too. I was thinking cantenna Barn side and grid on the field pointing at the cantenna..

For the field side, would I need a wireless router with two aerials? One to link to the barn and the other to transmit the WiFi around the field?

Out of curiosity, what are you doing?

Just to add my bit of poorly informed and unsupported information.
My old man helped setup a microwave link from one farm to another, that would’ve probably been a couple of miles. No idea of the cost, this is the sort of stuff he has kicking around and the cost would have been recouped by the farm selling the connection to the other.

I’m trying to link my barn which has WiFi with the field that my friend is living/working on for 6 months each year. There is no phone reception there, if he had Wifi he would be able to communicate with friends and access the NAS/Facebook/YouTube.

Use two old satellite disks pointed towards each other with the LNB replaced be wifi aerials.

^ You might want to use a theodolite or similar to make sure they are pointing toward each other accurately.

some more info here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi#Increasing_range_in_other_ways

That’s not nearly as cool as I had hoped! No offence meant!

I had hoped it was going to be something rad involving tracking movements and activities of livestock doing something or other.

You need 2 access points in bridge mode or WDS mode. Directional aerials are best, I have some D-Link ones in stock but you can get much cheaper ones. 1km is easily achievable. I’ve got 15km links up.

I had hoped it was going to be something rad involving tracking movements and activities of livestock doing something or other.

I’m currently testing an IP camera that will probably be used on the field next year for security and time lapse, may even get a camera inside one of the Pheasant sheds.

Devs, would I then need another router connected via ethernet in the field to transmit the WiFi around the field?

My directional antenna which I bought from ebay for 60 quid will get a strong signal from non-line of sight access points down in down which is over a mile away.

I bet even an Alfa card will pick it up over 1km if you have line of sight. Mine will pick up Macdonalds which is around 1km in a direct line, mind you, there’s a few houses, the ASDA and the largest curry factory in Europe in the way.

This is my Alfa card/
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Alfa-AWUS036H-USB-Wireless-G-WiFi-Adapter-5dBi-Antenna-/200608913475?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item2eb5391843
Cheap enough to try and see…..

Lasers ! surely there’s a way ?

Devs, would I then need another router connected via ethernet in the field to transmit the WiFi around the field?

In theory with a directional aerial at the base station end you may be able to get away with just running a wireless IP cam. Unlikely though. First I would try the barn end in WDS (bridge and access point) and if that doesn’t work then yes, you will need yet another access point. Doing wireless surveys over the internet is a pretty pointless exercise though. You need a mate with the kit to test what you are going to need really before you buy or heaven forbid, call in a pro to price up what you need.