Creating a 10km wireless bridge...pointers?

[Sergio de Almeida Lenzi]

Hello.....

! used to make wireless links too and my best experiences are:

ADSL<->MODEM (bridge mode) <==>|switch| <===> Freebsd with
pppoe,nat,ipfw

||

||

wireless ====(----------------------10km---------) wireless <====>switch

||    ||    ||

users.......

Freebsd is a small machine (celeron, P2, P3....) 256mb memory, 4gb or
more disk 1 ethernet

Software on FreeBSD
ppp using bridge mode (I supose your adsl is pppoe)   man ppp
the adsl mode is configured to work in bridge mode and as you see ,
is connect in the switch together with the freebsd and the wireless
bridge....

Wireless bridge.....
this is the trick point of the project... After searching and testing
various radios/swithes.. I deciced for the airlive 5460 ap2
http://www.airlive.com
configure both ap in bridge with WDS enable   and 21db of output
power....

Antennas: 
the radios must use a small pigtail and be as near as possible to the
antenna...
I build the antennas using a project canantenna
http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

the two points must be visual, that is: in one point you must see the
other,
beware with water (lakes, flat fields...) between the points
stay away from trees...  put the antennas at about 6m from the soil...
10km... You must try, I have one link in 7km here... with good
performance.. 
in severel clients (10 clients)... about 3mbits... 

the radios costs about 45 dollars each, the pigtail is 5dollars, the
antenna is about 5 dollars each
the swithes is about 20 dollars each...


Should work.

Hope I could help...

Sergio