XPost: comp.mobile.android, misc.phone.mobile.iphone   
   From: rmblayrrroy@nlnet.nl   
      
   Rod Speed  actually wrote:   
      
   > A weatherproof AP on the back wall of my house would be fine   
   > with nothing at the neighbours place at all, just their devices.   
      
   OK. You just constrained the solution by a lot.   
      
   My assessment is below, but anything that Jeff says trumps what I say.   
      
   With that caveat, no matter which device you put on your wall, you will   
   have no problem whatsoever painting the neighbor's house from your house.   
      
   Once you paint their house from your newly installed outside-wall access   
   point, their hand-held devices will see your 2.4GHz access point that you   
   put on your back wall, without any problem. At their house, the signal   
   strength you paint them with will be huge, for example, something like   
   -35dBm or something huge like that.   
      
   They will have no problem "seeing" your access point.   
      
   The problem will be that you need a good antenna on your side to pick up   
   their weak iDevice signal and you'll need a radio with good sensitivity to   
   pick out that weak signal from the noise level.   
      
   So you're gonna want to find the least noisy channel, but at 2.4GHz, you'll   
   be limited (as I'm sure you're aware). Let's hope it's not noisy where you   
   are.   
      
   Jeff knows that stuff far better than I do, where in my loose experience,   
   the sensitivity of any Ubiquiti receiver is pretty good, like in the 85 dBm   
   to 95 dBm range (yes, I know that's a 100 fold range).   
      
   In your case, with just one access point on your house wall, since it   
   greatly matters, you'll want to make your decision based on two things.   
   1. You want a really good antenna to receive their puny signal, and,   
   2. You want good sensitivity in your radio (to pick it out of the noise).   
      
   Given that, I'd recommend at least the nanobeam/powerbeams that Jeff had   
   recommended. You could even do with the Rocket M2 that I have but that   
   might be overkill since the dish is about 18 inches wide as I recall.   
      
   To summarize, here's what you do.   
   1. You buy a radio with a good directional antenna & receiver sensitivity.   
   2. You plug the POE into the wall outlet near your router.   
   3. You hook a short Ethernet cable from your router to the POE.   
   4. You hook a long Ethernet cable from the POE to the outside wall.   
   5. You mount the radio outside at least 12 feet high (if you can).   
   6. We can show you later how to set up that radio as an access point.   
      
   That's it for what you do.   
      
   As I said, you'll be painting them with -35dBm so they'll see your AP   
   without any problems. The problems are that their devices don't have a lot   
   of power to get back to your radio, so your signal strength will be   
   asymmetric. It will be great going to them, and lousy coming back.   
      
   Obviously if you want it to be great coming back, you put a paired radio on   
   the neighbor's wall - but if you don't do that - it "probably" will still   
   work if you get a good radio with a good antenna and receiver sensitivity.   
      
   Looking up the specs on my nanobridge M2 "NBE-M2-400 US"   
   https://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/nanobeam/NanoBeam_DS.pdf   
      
   The Antenna gain is 13dBi to 18dBi (note that my Rocket M5 antenna is   
   30dBi) where every 3 dBi is a doubling of power (and a narrowing of the   
   beam).   
      
   In your case, you don't care how narrow the beam is, so you can go from the   
   18dBi antennas to a 30dBi antennas. You can even hook a cheap Ubiquiti   
   Bullet M2 to a planar 20dBi antenna if you like. But most people like the   
   integral radio/antenna units like the nanobeam M2.   
      
   Remember that the puny iDevices in your neighbor's house have to go the   
   same 150 feet to your back wall. You have to receive that puny signal over   
   the noise, and then amplify the heck out of it.   
      
   So you want antenna gain (from 18dBi to 30 dBi would be good).   
   And you want good receiver sensitivity (dunno - maybe 90dBm to 95dBm).   
      
   Here's my summary which Jeff can trump at any time.   
   a. If you put matching radios on both houses, it WILL work.   
   b. If you put only one radio on your house, it "probably" will work.   
      
   Go for the most gain in the antenna and the best sensitivity in the radio.   
   (Remember every 3dBi is a doubling of power received.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)