Please help with extending my wireless connectivity to starbucks 2 blocks away?

C

chemist_slime

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2005
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I remember back in those days when wireless used to be free at starbucks, now they're charging a hefty price for each hour. Ridiculous!

Anyways, I live approximately 3 blocks from 2 starbucks and 2 blocks away from Nations and I was wondering if anyone could help me brainstorm a solution to extend my wireless router's signal to those places where I can enjoy a cup of coffee and surf on my own wireless. I'm currently using a Linksys WRT54G wireless router and I'm thinking of purchasing these following items (PLEASE.. correct me if I'm wrong, I'm such a noob at this):

1 802.11g (b/g) 1 Watt Outdoor Amplifier with N-Female Connectors
1 Power Supply and DC Injector
1 Omni directional Antenna

What else do I need? What kind of cables? What's the cheapest place to buy quality parts? Do I need some sort of TNC to N-female connector? I'm thinking of ordering from hyperlinktech.com. Is this legal? Will doing this get me in trouble? What do I need on the laptop end or will my integrated wireless card be ok? Help would be greatly appreciated. I'm done most of my research on the web but would now like some p-2-p advice. Thanks guys and girls!
 
^^^^ LOL WTF?
How is this stealing and how is he going to get in trouble?
He wants to extend his own wireless connection not snag Star-shmucks for free.

OP I wish I could help ya, the only advise I can give you is don't go to Starbucks.
The yuppie-fa-cation of America needs to end.
 
Are these two places in line of site, i.e. up the street? Or are they 2 blocks diagonal with buildings/trees in between?

My first thought was a dual antenna wrt54 running dd-wrt or something like that.
Crank up the power, put 2 directional antennas on it, aim them at the places you want to get the signal, then you might need to find a laptop wireless card that can send the signal back that far.

You can get externally mounted directional antenna's for not too much money.

Since you ahve the wrt54, this might not be too expensive. but make sure to weigh cost/benefit over just buying the starbucks wireless.
 
Thanks guys. I have another question though, why wouldn't a omni directional antenna work? Those give you a wider range right?
 
The other problem with the omni is it picks up noise as well as signal in 360*.

Might not show up in your AP as high noise, poor signal, but you will definately have better performance with a directional, even if you compare a 15dBi omni and a 15dBi directional.
 
No one has mentioned this, but putting an omni and amplifier up is only solving half of the problem. Sure, the signal has to get there... but it also has to get back. Does the PCMCIA wifi card your using, have some kind of feature to connect an external antenna?

neisius said:
I want to build a few and build a wifi lan with my friends in town...be we are really lazy
Click to expand...
If you arnt using some crap ISP with dialup speed uploads such as me, a VPN would be cheaper and easier. You dont even have to leave your chair! :D
 
bob said:
If you arnt using some crap ISP with dialup speed uploads such as me, a VPN would be cheaper and easier. You dont even have to leave your chair! :D
Click to expand...
You would have to spend a lot of money to get a WAN connection as fast as a WirelessG LAN. Wouldn't it be great to be able to do stuff like watch tv/movies off your friends PVR.
 
do some reading on cantennas. I think it'd work for what you want to do, but I'm not sure how happy Starbucks would be if you set up a Pringle's can on a mini-tripod at one of their tables ;)
 
bob said:
No one has mentioned this, but putting an omni and amplifier up is only solving half of the problem. Sure, the signal has to get there... but it also has to get back. Does the PCMCIA wifi card your using, have some kind of feature to connect an external antenna?
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I was thinking. All of that is fine until your WIFI card is not able to connect because it won't send a signal back. You need to also get an antenna for the laptop, assuming you even have a plug, to make any use of this.

I have been using EVDO for a few months and it rules :) Of course the price could be better
;)
 
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