Outdoor wireless - has anyone used Ubiquiti power stations?

[Erik Norgaard]

On 07/04/10 22:02, Modulok wrote:
> List,
>
> This might be a little off topic, but it still involves FreeBSD. I
> figured this list has many a smart folk, so I'd ask here.
>
> If I buy two of these Ubiquiti power station 2's, I can set them up to
> provide a long distance ethernet link to my BSD box right? Has anyone
> used these?
>
> Basically, I have an remote office with a FreeBSD box acting as a
> router, but no Internet connection. At the other side of the valley
> (15 miles) I have a DSL based Internet connection, but no office. In
> theory, I should be able to link them via a wireless bridge, right?
> That way I'd have local connection at the office on one interface, and
> a long distance link which hooks up to an ISP through their DSL router
> on the other. If I treat the link between the office and the DSL
> router as if it were the public Internet, I shouldn't need any
> encryption between me and it, right? Does this all sound like a
> reasonable approach?

In theory it would work, but reallity may be something completely 
different. I recall there have been a lot of community initiatives back 
when geeks were more abundant than broadband.

However, 15 miles sounds like stretching it. IIRC people were able to 
get around 1-5 miles on standard gear with a home made antenna and a 
clear line of sight.

Even if you get connection over 15 miles, you might loose it on rainy or 
cloudy days. Wifi signals are easily absorbed by water and anything that 
contains water - that means leaves and other vegetation.

I must add that I don't know the hardware you're looking at and I never 
experiented myself.

BR, Erik
-- 
Erik Nørgaard
Ph: +34.666334818/+34.915211157                  http://www.locolomo.org