Long distance wi-fi - UAP questions (split topic)

darryl

Member
Hey, i don't want to hijack this thread but i just bought 3 indoor Ubiquiti LR Access Points. I was thinking i'd use them to replace the WRT54G's that I have linking two buildings that are about 3-400 ft apart. 
 
From my testing today it looks like the WRT54g was getting better signal strength then i'm getting with the new equipment.
 
Any insight as to what I should try next to get a better signal between two buildings? Would an outdoor AP be better?
 
darryl said:
Hey, i don't want to hijack this thread but i just bought 3 indoor Ubiquiti LR Access Points. I was thinking i'd use them to replace the WRT54G's that I have linking two buildings that are about 3-400 ft apart. 
 
From my testing today it looks like the WRT54g was getting better signal strength then i'm getting with the new equipment.
 
Any insight as to what I should try next to get a better signal between two buildings? Would an outdoor AP be better?
 
 
Those LR AP's should have plenty of power.  Do they have external antenna hookups? 300-400 ft isn't that far, and a cheap high gain directional antenna should easily solve your problem.
 
I don't think they have external antenna ability. The other thing I didn't really think through was how I would get the remote access point connected back to wired network at the remote building.
 
Topic has been split off to keep the other one on track...  
 
UAP-LR's have great range - I have a single one inside this house and it reaches outside quite some distance; that said, the UAP-Outdoors I think are even better - I have one that I can access 1500' away - and they also can snap onto the Airmax Omni antennas if you need to increase gain.  The UAP-LR (or any of the indoor disc models) do not accept external antennas, but the outdoor ones do (except the 802.11ac one).
 
To be clear though, the UAP's are really geared for delivering wifi to client devices - and they do that very well - but they're not really set up for bridging between two buildings.  They do have the ability to work in isolated mode meaning it'll do wireless repeating to a nearby wired AP but that comes at a 50% performance hit since it has to receive then retransmit everything over the same radio.
 
For bridging two buildings, a pair of NanoStation Loco M5's would normally be the default go-to.  If you needed serious bandwidth you could go to their AirFiber but that's $3K.  For bridging two buildings, you would set up one as Access Point WDS and the other as Station WDS and you'll be running in minutes.
 
If you want to elaborate any more on what you're after I can give better specifics.
 
Agreed on the above.
 
You could even use a central AP, and connect several remote bridges to that access point.  I've used a Picostation as a central AP, and several remote Locostations to add connectivity to other structures.  You can get a hundred yards easily, provided you have good line-of-sight.  
 
Vegetation will significantly degrade your signal, so be warned.   
 
I don't really need serious bandwidth. I just want a stable connection between the two buildings.

Any problems mounting those nanostations indoors?
 
It's helpful if you describe the structures a little - but just looking at physics - mounting them indoors does impede their performance quite a bit.    Wifi is often a bit misunderstood - there's a radio signal that's let off the AP that goes bouncing around - bouncing off walls, going through some windows, etc - just a big scattered mess - but if properly focused it's actually a quite predictable wavelength that can travel through space quite a distance (miles if properly focused).  Think of a MagLight flashlight - if you focus the beam narrower you can see so much further - indoor wifi is often like taking the whole head off the maglight and leaving the bulb exposed - pretty bright right around the light but doesn't go far - or you can put the cap/lens on and focus the light in a particular direction and light up something a half-mile away.  Wifi isn't much different.
 
If you can mount two nanostation m5's where they can see each other, you'll get max speed/performance.  That said, I know someone who is connected to his dad's house 2 houses over using his dad's internet and accessing movie shares and the AP's are inside the houses, pointing through windows and going through the houses in between - any RF engineer would run away screaming but it *is* working.  It could be a lot better though if they both mounted the M5's outside the houses on pipes that let them see each other.
 
EyeofSauron - the Pico is a great device but with some limitations - its own range is amazing, but speeds over 65mbps require MIMO / multiple radios which the Pico doesn't have - it's a "single chain" device meaning it's max speed is capped by the protocol. Depending on the application it may not matter one bit - but worth mentioning.  The Pico M2 HP Is also kinda awesome in that it can be flashed to UniFi as well.
 
I'm pretty similar to the scenario you described. I share Internet from my neighbor's house. The two structures are houses around 350 or so feet apart with a tree line in between.

I like that base station idea as there is actually another house on the other side also sharing Internet.

I really appreciate the help.
 
If this is a situation with one person that has internet sharing with two houses on opposite sides, then the ideal scenario would likely be to have the base house use a Rocket M5 with an omni antenna - then use NanoStation Loco M5's in each of the connecting houses.  That will get you the best connection and performance.
 
Otherwise having the base house run two nanostation loco m5's and point one at each connecting house would work well too and may actually be a few bucks cheaper - just means running/mounting more hardware.  In that scenario, make sure they use different channels that are far enough apart to not conflict.
 
Not really - the NSL has a slightly different antenna pattern but for what you describe I don't see how it'd make a difference... the NSL is cheaper; the NS is bigger and has 2 LAN ports which can be handy for daisy chaining radios; the NS is more powerful but that's a non-issue for what you're describing.
 
Work2Play said:
EyeofSauron - the Pico is a great device but with some limitations - its own range is amazing, but speeds over 65mbps require MIMO / multiple radios which the Pico doesn't have - it's a "single chain" device meaning it's max speed is capped by the protocol. Depending on the application it may not matter one bit - but worth mentioning.  The Pico M2 HP Is also kinda awesome in that it can be flashed to UniFi as well.
 
Interesting... I didn't know you could reflash the Pico M2.
 
I have a single Pico gathering several remote camera streams, and serving wifi to an outdoor area with no problems.  It's been a great little device.
 
We use the Nanostation M5 at work for a couple customers to do a couple 350m PTP links. Works great. Highly recommend.
 
Yeah the Pico is the only device that can be reflashed for UAP - it's from when UniFi first came out and they needed an outdoor solution.  Some crafty members have proven that it can be done with other hardware too, but it's completely unsupported.  Too bad - there are plenty of times when a Nanostation or NSL would be great for me integrated with UniFi.
 
Back
Top