This page documents my use of various WiFi (802.11b and g) hardware to share my high speed internet connection on my home LAN and to expand the wireless LAN externally.

Part I: The Internet Connection

Part II: The LAN

Part III: The Extended LAN

The design of this antenna is a combination of many designs from various sources. The original inspiration came from this antenna and also instructions here and here at Seattle Wireless. These people know more than anybody else out there about this stuff.

Part IV:My Web/Email Server

The server machine is running Jaguar client (barely, it's a 300MHz G3). I have customized the Apache config. file only slightly (vHosting, custom logs) and I used a GUI called Sendmail Enabler to get sendmail going. It is running 24/7 and I have a system VNC server running called ShareMyDesktop by Mike Bombich so I can control it from any of the four machines at home using a VNC client called VNCthing.

Addendum: My ISP has since started blocking ports 80, 8080, 25, etc... so I had to move my sites (including this one) to the .Mac servers.

This design is an exact copy (well, as close as I could get) of this antenna by Rob Frohne. I put a plastic lid on the open end of the can before I mounted it to try to keep corrosion to a minimum.

Final Notes

1. Bandwidth: My ISP is not limiting bandwidth at all. I can't imagine a better ISP. The reliability is outstanding and the speeds are great.. I routinely get speeds in excess of 1.4 megabits per second. It would take a lot of users all connected at the same time to put a dent in a pipe that large. The comapny is called Kalnet and it amounts to a one-man operation in an office in the corner of a tire shop. Cost is $40.00 per month. Only in the midwest.
2. Line of Sight: I'm using a directional antenna to serve the clients (the grid antenna) so I can only connect locations that fall within the tranmission lobe and within range of this antenna. I haven't tested the range limits of the antenna.
3. You may have noted that I use only Linksys networking products (except for the Apple Airport card in the iBook). Even though they practically disavow any knowledge of the Mac OS, nearly all of their products perform flawlessly on my systems and they are extremely durable and reliable. I have only ever had one problem (a bad port on a router) and they replaced it free two weeks out of warranty. I can't say enough good things about Linksys.

So that's it. It ain't rocket science, it just takes time. Let the networks arise.