Wireless lan

[Rick]

OK, I am out here in my steel shop, about 75-80 yards from the house. I have a 4 bar signal on my new laptop(note, not a Lenovo but I may reconsider after reading Toms post on the subject. One reason I try to buy from Costco.........90 days to decide and shall I say I have a much greater chance of a spill than Tom, by a mile)
I am using a little usb piped up antenna up higher in the shop to get 4 bars. My son is about the same distance away but there is a massive barrier of conifer trees between his house and our house. He is in another direction from our house. He gets 4 bars with the same antenna in his house.
This is all possible because of Ayrmesh. http://www.ayrstone.com/ We have the same reception in all directions from the house where the Ayrmesh hub is connected via ethernet to our hughes.net satellite. It shoots through trees and down the road about 1/8 mile at least.
I am attempting to locate an IP video camera somewhere in my woods with a good view of the Elk super highway and other wildlife on the place. We are watching the chickens now. I am finding streaming video hogs bandwidth, especially piped up fps, bit rate, etc. I can set a bunch of stuff on my current camera which is indoor but I use it outside, weather permitting, to test signal strength here and there.
For now I am staying in my lan to do anything(54Mbps). Nothing to the internet except Emailed clips. I have to do this because I pay for my internet bandwidth. We do have unlimited in the middle of the night.
So.....any experience here? Camera settings? trimming trees and limbs really help?(as camera gets less bars than a pc or laptop).
Hard to set up an FTP server on my PC? I record now through IE8 which is easy but want it more together.
I can put another Ayrmesh hub out there somewhere that will act as a repeater(12 vdc, how handy!)
Just looking for any extra info I can get.
Sharx 2606 camera 802.11G

 

[DevoTheStrange]

can make parabolic reflectors to boost your signal..
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/

 

[AGBeer]

OK, I am out here in my steel shop, about 75-80 yards from the house. I have a 4 bar signal on my new laptop(note, not a Lenovo but I may reconsider after reading Toms post on the subject. One reason I try to buy from Costco.........90 days to decide and shall I say I have a much greater chance of a spill than Tom, by a mile)
I am using a little usb piped up antenna up higher in the shop to get 4 bars. My son is about the same distance away but there is a massive barrier of conifer trees between his house and our house. He is in another direction from our house. He gets 4 bars with the same antenna in his house.
This is all possible because of Ayrmesh. http://www.ayrstone.com/ We have the same reception in all directions from the house where the Ayrmesh hub is connected via ethernet to our hughes.net satellite. It shoots through trees and down the road about 1/8 mile at least.
I am attempting to locate an IP video camera somewhere in my woods with a good view of the Elk super highway and other wildlife on the place. We are watching the chickens now. I am finding streaming video hogs bandwidth, especially piped up fps, bit rate, etc. I can set a bunch of stuff on my current camera which is indoor but I use it outside, weather permitting, to test signal strength here and there.
For now I am staying in my lan to do anything(54Mbps). Nothing to the internet except Emailed clips. I have to do this because I pay for my internet bandwidth. We do have unlimited in the middle of the night.
So.....any experience here? Camera settings? trimming trees and limbs really help?(as camera gets less bars than a pc or laptop).
Hard to set up an FTP server on my PC? I record now through IE8 which is easy but want it more together.
I can put another Ayrmesh hub out there somewhere that will act as a repeater(12 vdc, how handy!)
Just looking for any extra info I can get.
Sharx 2606 camera 802.11G

IF you plan to go the hardwired route as well - you CAN run an ethernet cable between your routers and have one as a simple access point that is closer to your target destination. I have had to run this setup numerous times for one of my former clients. we had to run wires from his original AP to new APs in order to increase his wireless footprint. I will have to take a look at the repeater instructions that Devo posted. That looks promising as well.
Good luck!

 

[Rick]

I have one simple router(Dlink) with the wireless turned off. I needed it to install the ayrmesh hub. The only thing on the router is the ayrmesh(lan) with Hughes going in. I do all my wifi with Ayrmesh. It is now 10 feet over the peak of my roof. I get good 3/4 bar in the house with a tin roof. I get 4/5 bars anywhere(360 degrees) around the house. I am talking several hundred yards from the house. Mike is actually 150 yards away(thank you google earth) in very thick trees. He does 3/4 bars.

Thanks Devo and AG for the info. I am wondering if the reflector would help my ip camera? I do real good with laptop/pc but the camera comes back with 1-2 less bars. I am also finding the camera does not like inside the house like it did before I moved the Ayrmesh ten feet above my tin roof from the side of the house where I originally mounted it. Got a great big tin reflector right under it now. Not a good move for the house but unreal for outside. Laptop does fine in the house. Remember, no wifi from the router.
I do think I may take AG up on the ethernet option but only to move my Ayrmesh(about the size of a transistor radio) to another high point away from my tin roof for better signal in the house. It is PoE so I can move it very easily with another Zip tie and a stick, just a longer ethernet cable. What would be the maximum distance I can do an ethernet cable? Think I saw 100 yards max or am I dreaming?
We do not have trouble with 'intruders' in our lan as it is very secure and we live in a big bowl with no one around the bowl but us.
I really do not want to reflect my ayrmesh signal as I like it everywhere but maybe it would help the camera?
I can get an extension cable for the camera antenna and try that too.
There is also the option of another Ayrmesh 'out there' somewhere powered only by a 12 volt battery that will repeat the signal.
Have any of you wifi experienced people heard of Ayrmesh? Just came on the market last summer I believe.

 

[djonkoman]

my wireless here in house is worthless... just good enough to surf a bit, but not that fast loading, watching youtube or stream doesn't work well enough, also not sufficient for downloading
so I have such a thing wich can send the internetsignal trough the regular powergrid in the house, making internet available at any power outlet in the house(with the adapter that has a regular internet cord on it), and this solution works great, just as fast as when I sit next to the modem and plug it in directly

 

[VWFringe]

I was going to suggest power-line ethernet as well, if you cannot run an ethernet cable. I don't know whether it would work for the distances you're dealing with, but cabling it is the ultimate answer for you. Or possibly creating a second or redundant wi-fi network dedicated to the web cam. A can-tenna or some better antenna will boost your range, but not increase your bandwidth, i don't believe.

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

I always tell people if they want to watch youtube, cable it.

(if you were asking about FTP as a way of transferring files from one PC to another, I'd suggest getting Windows 7 and using their built-in "homegroup" as it makes it easy to drag and drop files or just open them from another PC, if they're awake. You could use FTP, but you could also just create network shares on each PC)

 

[Rick]

I do appreciate the comments and links. I think the cantenna would help the camera in some locations because it would help shoot the signal more directly through trees. I could set the camera and move the antenna to different(but close) locations for a better signal from the camera.
I can eventually do the remote hub option(same hub as base, just runs as a remote). From that hub I can do an ethernet cable to the camera if needed. I am seeing it as "a second, redundant wifi network, devoted to the webcam" as you suggest, VWFringe.

Some questions from a new guy to this game.

So my "bandwidth" is 54Mbps(max of the Ayrmesh)? Is that enough to watch decent wildlife video?
Bandwidth is a total different game than signal strength?
But bandwidth is only possible with very good signal strength? 3 bars or better? 2 bars?
Since I moved my Ayrmesh up higher, I am getting a 4 bar on the camera at further distances. I notice I can up the frame rate on the camera to 20/25 fps and it pipes it out just fine within the lan at 4 bars.
My apologies for 'dumb' questions. I am just learning all this stuff and am old and slow and have not tried to learn new stuff in the last few years. This is fun and will be alot funner if I can make my network fit my physical environment as we are in a very special place that has been hidden for years. I am having fun trying to peek here and there with no wires, except to power the camera.
More Qs.
How long can I run an ethernet cable(used for PoE)?
Where can I find a 12 volt DC to 5VDC step down whatever?(not transformer as it is dc)
I want to use a car battery eventually for the camera. Many outdoor cameras are 12 VDC but some are 5vdc. Seems it should be easy to step it down but I cannot find something simple out there. Like a plug into your vehicle and run a 5vdc device.
Thanks again all. We are gaining here with some help.

FTP question was related to storing the camera vids if I want to record all the time. For now we are only watching the stream and record when we want through ie8 to files I set up on all three PCs around the place. The camera info speaks of setting up an FTP for recording the stream. Maybe put it all on an external hard drive? The camera has the motion activated 'alarm' thing too but we have not set that up yet.

 

[VWFringe]

How long can I run an ethernet cable(used for PoE)?

100 meters - using a switch can extend that

Where can I find a 12 volt DC to 5VDC step down whatever?(not transformer as it is dc)

some links that may help...
http://www.powerstream.com/dc6.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...10&um=1&biw=1659&bih=905&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw
maybe one of these emergency USB battery chargers...?

Radio Shack has some that take rechargeables, but this one has two 18650 Li-Ion rechargeables built in. it could make that camera more portable, you could look at the camera's specs to figure out how long the battery would last.

cabling would limit your camera locations, i wasn't thinking of using cable for that, just between your PC's


also maybe look at buck converters on wikipedia, it may be 59 cents of parts i don't know

FTP question was related to storing the camera vids if I want to record all the time. For now we are only watching the stream and record when we want through ie8 to files I set up on all three PCs around the place. The camera info speaks of setting up an FTP for recording the stream. Maybe put it all on an external hard drive? The camera has the motion activated 'alarm' thing too but we have not set that up yet.

look online for ip webcam video capture software, some for free, some requires internet (won't work for you i know)...http://download.cnet.com/windows/video-capture-software/?tag=mncol

i know the video compression will determine how much you can get onto a hard drive.

some cheap DVR cameras have come out also, if you wanted to hide a camera then watch the footage later, you'd have to retrieve the camera first, but just another option
-----------------------------------------------

if you have hughes internet, is it a two-way satellite connect? Satellite Return Systems (SRS) have high latency, so, at least five years ago, it was tough if you had to share the connect between computers.

i saw some optimization notes here: http://www.highspeedsat.com/satellite-internet-how.htm
(they may be talking about there internet box or proxy server, don't know what you have, but software proxy servers exist if that would help you)

sounds like you have three needs:
1) webcam recording and portability (Wi-fi + vid cap s/w)
2) file and printer sharing (recommend cabled)
3) Internet bandwidth and possibly latency (i sure hope you all get to share the internet, that would suck if your son had to come over every time he wanted to use the internet...or maybe not.

 

[VWFringe]

im out of work right now (read as "some time on my hands"), so can help out a bit, but i'm a computer guy not an electronics guy, and not a programmer. feel free to send me an email directly if you need or want.

here;'s something i hadn't seen before

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

here's the best cantenna i could find: http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

and a gaggle of 'em here: http://www.wlan.org.uk/antenna-page.html

 

[Rick]

VW, thanks for all this stuff. It will take a day or two to digest it all and now we have winter back AGAIN. Another slug of snow and down below Zero for a day or two.
2/22 even. UGH!