Chris, Attenuation of RF signal at 2.4 GHz through buildings is huge! Not to mention the flea power on WiFi. You probably won't get through the building but you can always try. Not everything follows the expected rules in RF. That being said, think of an antenna no different than that of a optical lens on a light. It focuses the energy. To get a lot of gain you give up something. On a high gain vertical omnidirectional antenna the energy is forced into a doughnut shape sending the signal on a straight plane towards the horizon. Very little energy goes below or above the antenna. This is why people directly under a high gain antenna have a harder time connecting or staying connected. There is no RF saturation. People further away do better. On a directional antenna the energy is focused like a flashlight or headlight. The higher the gain, the more focused the RF energy becomes. This would be like focusing a flashlight to almost a laser beam. This is called beamwidth in an antenna and is measured in degrees. The higher the gain the smaller the beamwidth in degrees. Enough of the RF and Antenna lesson. This beamwidth can work in your favor. If you can find a dependable hard surface to point your antenna at and bounce off the surface from B to A (like a laser beam on a mirror) you may solve your problem. You may still experience multipath distortions. Sometimes you just experiment and it works, then you figure out why and document it for future use. Then you write a paper and get a Nobel prize! What is your minimum speed? Yes, I said speed not bandwidth. Are there no other options? VPN? Point to point T1 or nonloaded DSL (or just the cheapest way to get one pair of dead copper from point A to point B) and an in-house DSL extender? Fiber to the roof or around to the other side of the building and then an integrated WiFi enterprise panel antenna pointing in the correct direction? Just some thoughts. Good Luck, S. Earl Jarosh, N0HZ Cell: 612-868-1313 Off: 763-545-3275 Fax: 763-546-0027 Money Centers of America V.P. of Information Technology earl at jarosh.org earljarosh at moneycenters.com www.moneycenters.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Scheidecker" <scheides at iexposure.com> To: <tcwug-list at tcwug.org> Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 6:35 PM Subject: [TCWUG] Connectivity Distance > How far will a 14dbi directional antenna reach? > > We're trying to get users at location B to connect to a base station at > location A reliably. Location A is one block from location B. The access > point (and the antenna) would be located in a window on the third floor of > location or on the roof (still just over the third floor) of location A. > Tough part is, location B is on the back side of a 3 - 4 story building. > > Assuming the walls of the building are not made of lead, what are the chances > of a reliable connection? > > Is 14dbi overkill? Underkill? > > -Chris > > -- > Chris Scheidecker > Associate Systems Administrator > cscheidecker at iexposure.com > Internet Exposure, Inc. > http://www.iexposure.com > > 612.676.1946 x33 > Web Development-Web Marketing-ISP Services > ------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.tcwug.org > tcwug-list at tcwug.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list > _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.tcwug.org tcwug-list at tcwug.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list