Re: Wireless for RV campground

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:59:33 -0800 (PST), westom1@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Jan 24, 10:47 pm, Jeff Liebermann <je...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Permit me to supply a reason for not doing so.  Enabling 802.11n modes
disables the 802.11b mode.  That's because of the huge amount to time
required to aquire (long preamble) an 802.11b packet.

Meanwhile, that was a type of problem seen by the many who bought
the AP

Perhaps I wasn't too clear. All 802.11n access points disable 802.11b
compatibility when in the 802.11n 40Mhz mode. Some also disable WEP
encryption (finally) as it's NOT part of the 802.11n spec. These are
not a "problem" peculiar to any manufactory or vendor. They all do
it. I don't have a copy of the 802.11n spec, but this kinda hints at
what's happening:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n#Backward_compatibility>
If you need specifics, I'll dig them out later.

from tigerdirect - who buy based on price like a beancounter
rather than value like an engineeer.

I are an engineer and I buy from Tiger Direct. Over the years, I've
seen good deals and absolute junk mixed together in the nifty catalog.
My main complaints about Tiger Direct are over the non-functional
rebate program and their amazing inability to properly pack the
shipping box without having it explode on arrival.

The better 802.11 APs even have
a 2.4 Ghz transceiver for 802.11 B/G and a separate transceiver for
the 5 Ghz 802.11 N.

Pardon my ignorance, buy why does having a seperate 5.8GHz radio make
the access point "better"? Certainly, it adds a useful feature.
However, most dual band clients don't offer any way to differentiate a
connection between bands. Some don't even indicate which band they're
operating upon. Netstumbler and other diagnostics can't tell the
difference between bands. Some access points stupidly force the same
SSID on both bands making selection by SSID impossible. DD-WRT and
other 3rd party firmware barely works on dual band wireless routers.
Wi-Fi finders are all 2.4GHz. One laptop with a dual band radio
arrived with 5.8Ghz disabled to save battery power. How does having
5.8GHz make a a wireless access point "better"?

Meanwhile, one AP installed now. Wiring for additional units in
other locations as experience teaches what does work better (location
and AP manufacturer) and what is needed for those customers and their
reception.

I hope I'm not reading this incorrectly, but if you've only installed
this one access point, you're about to have a serious adventure in the
reality of wireless. I've lost count of how many I've sold,
installed, setup, fixed, tweaked, and otherwise done battle with. If
you include client bridges, point to point links, and mfg test
fixtures, I would guess several hundred. What's scary is that no two
are the same. I could transplant a working system, from one location
to another, and get compeletely different performance and reliability.
You may discover what works better by experience, but there's no
guarantee that this experience is universal or even portable. Best of
luck.

If 802.11 B/G/N wireless worked as some stated, well, that would be
how a tigerdirect AP gets sold so cheap and at high profit.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you're claiming. Tiger Direct
sells fairly current model units from a variety of manufacturers. They
do tend to sell the absolute cheapest, but at least they stick with
fairly well known brands. They also sell refurbished units and
closeouts, which are clearly marked as such. I've bought some of
these with rather mixed results.

The major determination in final cost of a commodity access point is
sales volume. That's why wireless access points sell for MORE than
wireless routers, even though wireless routers have more hardware and
more complex development. That's also why wireless game adapters sell
for more than both, as the volume just isn't there.

Laptops are made in China. So all laptops are aslo crap?

Well actually they are all crap. I also fix laptops. When I get rid
of the common cold and drag myself back to my palatial office, I'll
post a photo of the rather large number of unrepairable laptops I've
been accumulating. Most are failures due to crappy soldering of the
BGA (ball grid array) chips. Others fail due to overstressed parts,
bad mechanical design, and just plain junk parts. The all too common
low-ESR electrolytics with the counterfeit electrolyte is still a
problem after about 6 years:
<http://www.badcaps.net>
I don't have time to itemize all the chronic failures that I've seen.
Let me assure you that most of these failures could have been averted
if the laptops were properly designed, used quality components, didn't
cut corners, and were a bit more rugged.

That is
the reasoning?

I could ask you the same question as to why you decided that since all
laptops were made in China, that they were all crap. What I said was
that most of the major commodity router manufacturers buy from
contract manufacturers in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. They do
not manufacture the guts. The vendors change constantly, sometimes
without changing the model number. Unfortuantely, quality and
reliability vary with these vendors and designs. In order for someone
to determine if a specific product is of reasonable quality, one has
to know something about what's inside the plastic box. Is that
sufficiently clear?

It is not who assembles it. It is who sets the
standards.

What standards? For quality? ISO-9000 and such offer a documentation
trail so that if anything goes wrong, the appropriate culprit can be
blamed. Got any better standards for insuring you get a quality
wireless product? Certifications?

Even Cisco routers - the backbone of the Internet - are
made in China. But Cisco, Dell, HP, etc define standards. Those
standards make the difference between a cheap tigerdirect AP point
verses the useful one from Netgear.

I guess you haven't seen all the counterfeit Cisco modules and
products:
<http://www.andovercg.com/services/cisco-counterfeit-wic-1dsu-t1.shtml>
<http://www.coastnetwork.com/counterfeitcisco.html>
I bought some nifty HP print server cards on eBay, that lasted about a
month before they blew. They were counterfiet. The problem is that
all this stuff is made in the same factories, by the same people, on
the same production line, with the same parts, using the same
specifications. The only difference is that little of it is ever
tested or burned in. Sometimes, known defective parts are used. The
giveaway is that if the factory runs out of parts, they tend to
substitute something cheaper. You can see that in the above URL's. If
you haven't run into this problem yet, consider yourself lucky. It's
an expensive mess. Anyway, a better set of specs isn't going to help
much. Destroying the over-runs and failures will help.

Get one 802.11 B/G.N AP from a reputable manufacturer - and don't
even look back at all the naysaying in this thread.

I agree. One good wireless router, from whatever constitutes a
reputable manufacturer, is a very cheap object lesson in wireless
reality. The experience gained in deployment and troubleshooting
should compensate for the lack of expertise, experience, and planning.
Those can be obtained later in order to patch up the system. I'm
serious. Deploy an 802.11n solution and see if it does what you want
and if it's worth the money. You'll learn more from the experience
than from reading my rants and understanding the naysayers.

Meanwhile, what is necessary for lightning protection and exterior
grade cables were discussed elsewhere.

Nope. No external antennas allowed (or will work) with most 802.11n
access points. You don't need a lightning arrestor if there's no
exposed antenna. Maybe an arrestor on the power line entry and LAN
cable backhaul.

If the campground owner is concerned with a trivial four inch wide
cut across the roadway (where multiple pipes are buried for this
cabling and future purposes), then he really did not want this anyway.

Nobody does road cuts these days. Too messy and too much work. About
$250. See:
<http://www.borit.com>
The video clip demo is worth watching if you're planning on doing
horizontal drilling (to avoid trenching).



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.

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