cedwards
EF5
Does anybody know of a good high power router that can be used for car-2-car wi-fi neworking? Preferably with an external antennae option.
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car to car router
- Thread starter cedwards
- Start date
J Kinkaid
Is this what you are looking for ?
http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/mbr1000-failsafe-broadband-n-router
http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/mbr1000-failsafe-broadband-n-router
Dan Robinson
In 2006 we had a network in the car using a Linksys router pulling a shared connection off of a laptop with an aircard. All the vehicles in our caravan could access it. The Cradlepoint router would be a simpler solution, but I don't think the Cradlepoint is powerful enough to span multiple vehicles. I think you'd have to hook up a Linksys router to a Cradlepoint (using the ethernet-out port), then run the wifi hotspot from the Linksys (or equivalent).
cedwards
EF5
I have the Cradlepoint router and last year, I connected another Linksys router to that. It let us share the connection if caravaning too close. I want something that will work in the caravan of vehicles at normal highway distances.
Joey Ketcham
I don't know of anything that would be specific for car-to-car WiFi, however you could just use a standard linksys router and try using a repeater on top of the vehicle or something and see if that helps with extending the range at all.
Skip Talbot
EF5
Perhaps a directional antenna if you keep the same configuration of your caravan?
Ryan McGinnis
EF5
That's what I was thinking. If you want to be really ghetto, you can try something like this:
http://www.fakeproject.com/Ikea_WiFi_Booster/
Of course, you'd wrap the napkin ring around the antenna of the router or the repeater antenna. You'd get even more range if you made another for a wifi dongle on the client side. This would also probably work best when you're on straight highways -- you might lose connection around bends, as most of the parabolic antennas I've looked at have a narrow beamwidth. It'd be pretty cheap to try out, though.
Cris Schroeder
EF2
I would focus on the antenna side of the equation and use a normal Linksys router. You could attach one of these to a luggage rack or whatever. A yagi antenna may be too directional for use on the road, though, so another option would be to use decent mag-mount wifi antennas like these on all the vehicles. You will get the best range improvement by moving the antenna out of the vehicle, and some directional gain won't hurt either.
I wouldn't expect miles worth of range, but it should cover normal car to car distances on the highway.
I wouldn't expect miles worth of range, but it should cover normal car to car distances on the highway.
This may be a silly question as I am not a professional network admin. I do feel as though I know my way around the home and small business networks pretty well, but what did you mean by "Cat 2"? Did you mean the class of device (1 or 2)? As an example Class 1 Bluetooth devices are good for 100 meters and Class 2 are good for 30 meters.
I think the antenna solution with the highest dB rating is definitely a good suggestion as well as sticking with Wireless-N as it has the most range. I know Linksys sells an external antenna as an upgrade option for certain routers. I would also mosey on over to the http://www.EVDOForums.com for the latest and greatest information on routers and other hardware that utilize cellular broadband cards. The upside to Cradlepoint is they upgrade their firmware on a frequent basis, whereas Linksys rarely upgrades the firmware for their cellular router (WRT54G3G). Perhaps a wireless range extender would be in order if nothing else works. Hopefully the above wasn't a dumb question.
Hey Gordon Spencer, do you have any suggestions?
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Robert Edmonds
EF5
I sometimes set up my computer to dump files into a directory that I can access from my ipod via wireless network. This allows me to check up on the weather while I am waiting for the cap to break without running the laptops screen(which saves my batteries). It also allows me more freedom and takes less time to check up on the weather. Like I can enjoy throwing a baseball around. I just found a standard netgear wifi router that takes 12V, this saves me from having to get some converter when running it off the batteries.
Gordon Spencer
EF5
Cradlepoint MBR1000 or Kyocera KR2 , Both are N - 3G to Wifi routers. KR2 is made by Cradlepoint for Kyocera. Best place to buy is www.wirelessnwifi.com . They have great prices and support.
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Bobby Lang
Like others have mentioned IMHO, the best option to try would be the external antenna attached to your Linksys router ontop of your car. A wireless N router wouldn't hurt either as your range would increase. Personally, I upgraded from the Netgear Rangemax Router to a wireless N router because of a great deal on Black Friday. I had good performance with the Rangemax router but I can tell a performance increase upstairs with the new N router.
Another option, although very pricey, would be to purchase a router that has a repeater function (or WDS). This would allow you to connect a wireless router to another wireless router. Very few (if any at all) consumer level routers have this option so this would be pricey.
Another option, although very pricey, would be to purchase a router that has a repeater function (or WDS). This would allow you to connect a wireless router to another wireless router. Very few (if any at all) consumer level routers have this option so this would be pricey.
You may want to look at a solution that is in a lower band of the spectrum. The Chester County (PA) ARES/RACES group has had a lot of success with the Avalan 900 MHz stuff ( http://www.avalanwireless.com/ ). They say that their stuff can do 300 feet with omni antennas. For larger distances, they say you need a directional antenna (of course, hills and bends in the road would create problems).
At 802.11a/b/g frequencies, line of sight, multipath, etc. issues would probably make things pretty unreliable.
If you want to stick to 802.11b/g stuff, you should probably include an amplifier in the mix, but, even with those, it's unlikely you'll be happy with the results.
cedwards
EF5
I decided to go with the O2Link Router with a 7.8 db gain mag mount antenna. This should let us network in a normal caravan configuration on the highway.
