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Main Long Range Links Explained

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Glossary A guide to building longrange wireless links ( over 1km )
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How-To I recently managed a successful 5km link across town, Wlan Antenna
using just standard access points and antenna. While Visit eWEEK for the Latest
Wireless News,
working out all of the signal loss calculations to see if
Articles the link was even possible, I started to understand how
Information, Analysis &
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Public Wifi long range links work, and how manufacturers such as
wireless.eweek.com

Safety
Cisco have been able to offer long range links while
The State of Nearson Inc.
WiMAX staying within the legal transmission power limits for Antenna Design &
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Roundup www.nearson.com

Review - USR I had always assumed that the maximum range a

MAXg Router wireless connection could be was about 1km (based on
Signal Booster Wireless
Review - uk power limit) and this was in line with the practical Buy Wireless Routers.
Linksys range tests I had carried out. To get increased range, Compare Prices and
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always required sticking a big antenna on the Access PriceGrabber.com
Securing Your
Point, pushing the overall signal well over the uk limit
Wireless
Network (20dbm). Advertise on this site

Hardware for
Point-to-point While carrying out the 5km link test I found that the snr
links (signal to noise ratio) was not the really critical factor,
MIMO Wireless but that it was the received power level that decided if a
Guide link was possible.
Highspeed
Wireless Transmit Power
Bridge
The power usually expressed in mW or db [1] that
Linux Based
AP
the wireless device transmits at.
Access Point Receive Sensitivity
Comparison The level of signal the wireless device needs to
Limiting receive in order to make a connection. Most
Shared wireless devices require a stronger signal to pick
Bandwidth up a connection at 11Mbps than one at 1Mbps.
Antenna Antenna Gain
Cabling
Antenna don't increase the transmission power, but
focus the signal more. So instead of transmitting in
Hardware every direction (including the sky and ground)
insides antenna focus the signal usually either more
Inside a Buffalo horizontally or in one particular direction. This gain
WBRG54 is measured in decibels [1].
Inside a Noise Level
Linksys This is the strength of the background noise that
Wag54g the wireless device is picking up.

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Long Range Links Explained - Gumph http://wireless.gumph.org/articles/longrangelink.html

Inside a Belkin Signal to Noise Ratio

F5D7130 The difference between the strength of the
Inside a Buffalo background noise and the strength of the signal. If
Airstation
the noise is greater than the signal, then no signal
Inside a
will be picked up. If the noise is only just less than
Linksys Wap11
the signal then there will be lots of lost packets.
Ideally at least 5db difference between the noise
Books and signal will allow for a clear connection.
Wireless Hacks EU Power Limit
Building In Europe the maximum signal that your antenna
Wireless can transmit in ANY direction is 20 decibels. This is
Community
Networks calculated by adding the wireless device transmit
802.11 Security power(in decibels) to the antenna gain (in decibels)
Wireless [1].
Network Starter
Kit The basic premise for long range links is
Hardware
Hacking for Transmit Power is independant of Receive
Geeks
Sensitivity
poll I had always assumed (wrongly) that an access point
What do you that transmitted at a higher power, would receive the
want from
wireless
signal at a higher power as well. This is not the case.
hotspots? Increasing the power that an access point (or any
j free
k
l
m
n access wireless device) transmits at, does not affect the level of
j cheap
k
l
m
n
signal it needs to receive in order to make a connection.
access
j fast
k
l
m
n access When you stick an antenna onto a wireless device, the
j access
k
l
m
n
antenna gain acts on both the transmit power and
anywhere receive sensitivity, so you are not only sending your
j bypass
k
l
m
n signal further (in a more focused direction), but your are
telco's also able to listen to weaker signals. The EU
j what's a
k
l
m
n regulations only limit the transmit signal strength, not
hotspot? the receive sensitivity, so we need a way of increasing
vote the receive sensitivity, but not increasing the transmit
signal beyond the 20db limit.

Most access points and wireless devices in Europe

Appendix transmit at 15 - 17.5 db. (Some may claim 20db , but
this includes the gain of the small antenna they are
Changelog
using) This would limit the antenna gain to just 2.5 - 5db
Privacy policy
(or less), which is not going to affect the range
significantly. In free space (ie outside, with clear line of
sight [2] ) for every 6db of increased signal strength or
receive sensitivity you can double the range between
the devices.

Some wireless devices however, let you reduce the

transmit power, which allows us to use a more powerful
antenna. This does not increase the overall strength of
the signal , but does increase the receive sensitivity. If
we do this at both ends of the link, we can increase the
range, while staying within legal limits.

The Maths Explained

In order to get a signal from point A to point B, the
signal arriving at the wireless device B needs to be
greater than the receive sensitivity of that device
TPowerA + AntGainA - SignalLossAtoB + AntGainB >
ReceiveSensB

TPowerA = Transmit Power of A

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Long Range Links Explained - Gumph http://wireless.gumph.org/articles/longrangelink.html

AntGainA = Antenna Gain of A [3]

AntGainB = Antenna Gain of B
SignalLossAtoB = Signal Loss between A and B
ReceiveSensB = Receive sensitive of B

In order to see how far we can get a signal, we need to

calculate how much signal loss we can cope with, and
still get a strong enough signal to B.
Maximum SignalLossAtoB = TPowerA + AntGainA +
AntGainB - ReceiveSensB

As an example, if we base our figures on a 15db

wireless device, 5db antenna at each end and -92 db
© 2002-2006 receive sensitivity we get.
wireless.gumph.org
Maximum SignalLossAtoB = 15 + 5 + 5 - -92
Maximum SignalLossAtoB = 117db

In practice 117db should give you a range of 1-2 km (In

theory it should be over 5km). If we now look at
reducing the transmit power to 7db, and using 13db
antenna on each end thus keeping the transmit signal
strength to 20db, we get
Maximum SignalLossAtoB = 7 + 13 + 13 - -92
Maximum SignalLossAtoB = 125db

This gives us over twice the range of before, yet still

keeps the signal strength legal.

Suitable Hardware
Once I had worked out how to make long range links, I
started to look round for wireless kit that would support
long range point to point links. I was very disappointed
to find not only the market quite thin, but the prices very
high for such kit. Update The latest firmware for the
D-Link DWL900AP+ Access point supports variable
transmit power, making it the cheapest entry in the long
range link arena by far. I remembered that the old v1.1
Wap11 from linksys could have its power level adjusted
using a 3rd party Amtel utility, but on looking at the spec
for the old Wap11 v1.1, the receive sensitivity is so
poor, that it is not suitable for long range links.
Transmit Receive
Kit Power Sensitivity Pros Cons
Market
Leader,
Proved
Cisco Aironet 0,7,13,15,17,20 -85db@11Mpbs reliablity, Oh so
350 db -94db@1Mbps Maximum Expensive
Claimed
Range
40.2km
Maximum
3Com Expensive,
-81db@11Mpbs Claimed
Wireless 7,13,18 db less range
-87db@1Mbps Range
Bridge than Cisco
16.9km
Newcomer
Cheap
D-Link Same as to the
10,13,16,19 db and well
DWL-900AP+ WAP11?? longrange
supported
arena
If anyone, knows of any other common hardware (no
specialist kit) that supports variable transmit power,
then please let me know.

Footnotes

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Long Range Links Explained - Gumph http://wireless.gumph.org/articles/longrangelink.html

[1] Device power is actually measured in dbm and

antenna gain in dbi, but if you already know this,
then this article is probably not for you.
[2] Freespace loss is also dependent on an
unobstructed fresnal zone, but I don't really want
to go into that here.
[3] In order to simplify the maths I'm ignoring
cable loss between the wireless device and the
antenna, as this can be simply treated as reduced
antenna gain..

Comments
Variable power access point
FYI - Another access point which supports variable
power is the Buffalo WBR2-G54S and its 54Mps
brother. It also has an Alcatel type coax socket.
Posted 1 Feb 2005 by Stuart Roberts

Lucent Orinoco Transmit Power

You can reduce the transmit rate of lucent orinoco
pcmcia cards. Go to Network Connections in Windows
XP. Right click and click properties on the Orinoco
Connection. Click configure. Click the advanced tab.
Click transmit rate, and adjust it on the right.
Posted 15 Feb 2005 by Steven

Variable power acess point

You can also look at Linksys WRT54G(S) model

routers. You can use firmware from Sveasoft (251mW
max), HyperWRT (84mW GUI/251mW telnet) and
DD-WRT (251mW max). You can also add an SD card
reader to increase the amount of onboard memory to
install linux apps. By far the best router (by me atleast).

Posted 1 Jun 2005 by crispy critter

Variable Power Access Point

The Apple Airport Extreme base station supports
variable transmit power and has an external antenna
connector. Mac OSX and Windows 2000/XP
compatible software. Supports router and access point
modes of operation. USB connection for a printer,
RJ-45 for ethernet and even a 56k modem. A great and
versatile product. Looks nice too, of course. :-)
Posted 25 Jan 2006 by Stuart Templeton

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