--- "James K. Lowden" <jklowden@schemamania.org>
wrote:
> Andy, 
> 
> I just had a discouraging 802.11b experience you
> might want to hear
> before you decide to try to go through cinder block.
>  
> 
> The client is a W98 desktop with a 3Com PCI card
> holding their PCMCIA
> wireless card.  The WAP is a Linksys, which we
> substituted after
> finding no joy with 3Com's.  We're in a 2nd floor
> Bronx 3 BR apartment, going
> from my friend's daughter's bedroom (the client) to
> the other end of
> the apartment (his office).  Total distance might be
> 75 feet,
> probably more like 50, measured in a straight line. 
> (Where I come
> from, we say, "as the crow flies", but I wouldn't
> want to be that
> particular crow!)
> 
> The good news is the two vendors' products
> communicate; the bad news
> is, not fast and not far.  
> 
> We wound up running 25' of Ethernet, because the
> wireless link
> wouldn't go the distance.  From the bedroom, down
> the hall to the
> living room, a little around the corner, and that's
> it.  From there
> it's wire or nothing.  Well, I didn't happen to have
> any Pringles cans
> around, and your message arrived a few hours too
> late.  Thanks,
> though: it's a hoot!
> 
> 3Com's site says 802.11b doesn't go through walls,
> not even
> sheetrock.  They say the signal bounces off walls. 
> That conforms to
> our experience.  His 50-75 feet would be
> considerably longer as the
> carpet lies, and would include a hard right turn.  
> 
> It's true, the Linksys setup uses a Windows
> application via
> USB/Ethernet.  They provide a .MIB file you can use
> to set it up via
> SNMP, but that's way outside what I know how to do,
> so I ran the
> Windows schlock. It got the job done; she's online,
> albeit at <1 Mb/s,
> measured by NetBSD ping (1KB packets, 17% loss
> rate).  
> 
> Given that we couldn't even flood the apartment with
> 802.11b packets,
> I decided WEP was beside the point.  
> 
> Diagnostics are lousy where they exist at all.  It's
> impossible to
> know anything about the signal strength or link
> level status beyond a
> stupid green/yellow/red Windows widget on the
> client.  
> 
> Thought you might be interested....
> 
> --jkl

Well, I'm going to try it anyway for a few reasons. If
it fails going over to my friends house, I can at
least eliminate the coax wire going from the front to
the back of the house on the floor which my girlfriend
will like. And I can wait and see how this DHCP thing
works out. OR, I can buy another WAP as a relay and
see if it works.

Have you tried the firmware hack to boost the
amplifier power in that thing? Supposedly, it will
double the range of the WAP11. I'm going to try this
if necessary. Or if it comes down to it, I'll build an
antenna. My friend will probably like this. He's a
hardware hacker so I think he'd be amused at trying
it.

Andy

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