Wireless link between two buildings

[PPettit]

I'm experienced with wired notworking but I've never really done much with wireless equipment. Unfortunately for me, I've got a situation that requires it. We're on a remote construction site and I have to provide Internet service for one of the other sub-contractors in a nearby building.

Here's the situation:
1. Two buildings separated by 50 feet or so.
2. Each building has wired and wireless devices.
3. I can't have any above-ground cabling and I've been asked to use wireless instead of digging a trench and running conduit and CAT5.
4. Our building will have an Internet connection that will tie into a Linksys WRT54G for our printers, desktops, and laptops.
5. I don't know what the other building contains because I haven't set foot on site yet. I'm fairly sure that I will need to provide some kind of router/switch/hub for them to connect to.
6. I'm near a somewhat small remote town. Tech stores are pretty much limited to Staples and Radio Shack.

Can I connect these two buildings with "off the shelf" equipment? I've done some poking around for answers but haven't figured out anything concrete just yet. Can I put another WRT54G in the other building and create a wireless link between the two routers? If so, does this have any impact on laptops that would also need to connect wirelessly?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jsentelle]

You could get a range extender to get to the other building, depending on what kind of stuff the signal passes through. 50 feet isn't a whole lot of distance to span, if you can place the access point in a decent place you can probably get signal at the other building without any special bridging. I have seen some high-gain antennas at Staples, I think they were D-link, but they had adapters to fit any wireless adapter or router with an external antenna. The Linksys WET11 will run in bridge mode, that may be an option too, put a pair of them back-to-back.

 

[PPettit]

In case it helps to know, the buildings are basically slightly modified trailer homes. I'm glad you brought up the antenna issue. That hadn't even occurred to me. When I got on site today, I noticed that the signal strength was something like 55% at the farthest point within the trailer. I wonder if I'll experience the same (or worse) performance going from building to building.

I guess the WET54G is the replacement for the WET11. It sure seems like I would just need one of them for the other building. Do I really need a pair? Can't I just put a bridge in the other trailer and configure it to pick up the signal from the router?

 

[jsentelle]

There are some signal boosters out there that would probably work there. The best way to do it would be a bridge pair with directional antennas, but it will also be the most expensive, and you aren't likely to find the hardware to do it off the shelf in an office supply store.

Look at Linksys WRE54G range expander. You only need to put it in range of the existing access point, then it acts like a signal repeater. If you can get your signal to be at 55% or higher consistently it should work for you. One bad thing about trying to bridge things this way is that you will be at the mercy of any other devices within range, they could easily cause interference and knock down your link if they get on the same channel as your access points.