Our allotment (community garden) is 200 metres from the nearest wifi source. so @stin and myself decided to try and setup a system to catch the signal and re-broadcast it to our fellow allotment gardener's plots. Mainly to be able to provide cctv to plot holders as unfortunately we occasionaly get thieves stealing from sheds and plots.
There are 52 plots on our allotment so we need a fair bit of coverage.
We decided to try and catch the signal from 1 of our homes (200m away)
Firstly, we attached a 2nd router to the home broadband provider, this router has 2 antenna's, is more powerfull than the virgin provider router, also it enables us to move the 2nd router to give the best signal in the direction we want.
Now for the system at the allotment..
We have a solar system on our plot so we already have electricity for the wifi
https://steemit.com/offgrid/@pcste/off-grid-d-i-y-solar-system-for-the-allotment-shed-using-re-cycled-parts-how-to-do-it
Next we got the equipment to setup the system at the allotment.
A directional reciever to catch the wifi
signal king WiFi Wireless Antenna Long Distance Booster up to 3000 M
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WiFi-Antenna-Long-Distance-booster-Wireless-up-to-3000-M-Away-Hot-Spots-USB-UK/263113280262?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
This has to be connected to a pc/laptop that has to be left in situ so we decided to connect it to a raspberry pi.
we then bought another wifi extender/transmitter. you could use a 2nd signal king but the signal king is directional so will only broadcast in the direction its pointing, we need a broader coverage so we bought 1 of these to broadcast the signal.
Wireless WiFi USB Adapter Blueway N9100 Wi-Fi
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Wireless-WiFi-USB-Adapter-Blueway-N9100-Wi-Fi-Booster-Antina-3000mW/332149335290?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
The advantage of this device is it has 2 antenna's which you can unscrew and attach new longer antennas.
we attached a cheap antenna with 3m of cable so we could mount it on a pole on the roof of our allotment shed.
The signal king and the N9100 was then connected to the raspberry pi
@stin installed Raspbian operating system
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
and hostapd
https://seravo.fi/2014/create-wireless-access-point-hostapd
this turns the raspberry pi into a wireless access point.
The signal king is recieving the signal from the provider 200m away the raspberry pi then broadcasts the signal out through the N9100
When the access point was running we then tweaked the signal by moving the ariels to get the best reception and transmission.
So far we have managed to provide a signal to nearly half of the plots.
We are now looking to add a 2nd ariel to the transmitter and possibly moving the system location to the community shed which is in the center of the allotment, currently it has no electricity though.
We are currently getting approx 62mb connection, which is good enough to stream. :-)
Next step is to start adding and testing cctv. obviously this is going to cost more so any SBD or donations to this post will be added to the project.
If you would like to donate, transfer donation to @pcste with the memo allotment wifi
If any body needs any advice on setting up a similar system, feel free to ask in comment or in chat.
please vote pc for witness.
to vote for me go to : https://steemit.com/~witnesses scroll down the page and enter pcste into the box (dont use @sign) then click vote
im surprise u still hang in there as a witness.
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