Networking With Hi-Gain Antenna

My friend lives across and up the street less than 400 feet from me. There are no objects between us except for a few cars at times on the street. He has a wireless network and I have a wired network. What is the best way to tap into my friend's wireless network. I know I should be able to put a PCI network adapter in one of my XP machines and see a signal that could be configured to use a wireless network if I can just get the signal from my friend's house.

What is the best way to get the signal to my network adapter from my friend's house? I know I could place an external hi-gain directional antenna at his house, but could I also place an indoor directional antenna in his house that can see my house through a window at his house and do the same thing. I have one other issue. Will I need a similar antenna setup on my end or will my network adapter card in the machine in my home find the signal?

Any help will be appreciated.

 

I'm sorry to say that at this point in time we don't seem to have anybody on here who is experienced with wireless and who posts.

Best bet for this is a wireless networking forum and This one is active with questions/answers that seem to me (as a total wireless know-nothing) to make sense.

If you do try them, let us know how you like the forum.

 

Thanks for the site. I will check them out and get back if I find out anything meaningful.

 

Yes you will need to have an antenna to both send and receive the information for you friends computer and yours. Think of it as two radios talking to each other. The antennas will be affected by plants and buildings alike, so care should be taken when placing them to receive the best signal.

This can all be done through the "wireless networks" that are out there but the antenna that you use needs to be a directional gain antenna rather than the "rubber duckie" that comes with the typical wireless router.

 

Thanks Matt. Since by posting my friend fired up his laptop and got inside my front door and up the stairs before his lost the connection. After he left I moved the computer that has my Hawking PCI card in it to the front bedroom window area. I got a full meter of signal from my friend current set-up. I am now pretty sure with a little more kick on my friends end the signal should make it to my family room at the rear of my house or about 40 more feet were my network is located. What do you think?

 

Question??? When my friend and I are successful in connecting our networks by using an adapter card in one of my XP machines what will I need to do to access the internet with the other XP machine that does not have an adapter card. My two machines are current networked with a wired router.

 

Wired/wireless shouldn't matter in this situation. If you have internet access on any PC on your network then all networked PCs should be able to get to the internet. They simply need an IP address/subnet mask that puts them on the same network and a gateway address pointing to the device that performs the modem sharing.

Matt E - welcome to you and twice welcome if you are a wireless guy. We needed somebody. I'm good with wired issues and general networking stuff but the wireless is a whole different animal.

 

Me again. I am getting closer. I now can see my friend's network and have access to the internet. I now am faced with another challenge. I need to figure out a way to get access to the internet for my second PC on my network. I was told to use a proxy service. I installed AnalogX Proxy. I pinged all three PC's with no problem. The instructions tells me to enter the IP address of the computer that I will connect through and enter port number 6588 in IE of the second PC. I do this but I can't connect to the internet. I think my problem may be my port. How can I find out if my port is open and working? I'll get there eventually with help.

 

enter the IP address of the computer that I will connect through and enter port number 6588 in IE of the second PC

Could you post exactly what you are entering for this?

An IP port will always be 'working' unless you have it blocked by a firewall.

 

I am entering the IP address assigned to my computer for internet access, In my case the one I see is 192.168.1.103. I can also use the computer name, neither work. However, when I search for the IP address using IPconfig command it shows my friends IP address. I have also tried it with no success.

I think my problem is firewall related. I run Zone Alarm on both computers. I have Zone Alarm configured to accept traffic from the computers. I have even turned Zone Alarm off, which doesn't help the situation. My friend thinks the Linksys router that I am using for my network could be causing the problem. I am want to agree with him, but I thought the router mainly blocked data coming in from the internet and not out of or between the computers on the network. I guess I could try a hub or just connect the two computers through the ethernet cards to answer this question. I am only using the router now because I currently connect to the internet using a cable modem, which I plan to disconnect when I get the wireless access totally working.

Happy Holidays

 

bobemartin - I think I'm getting myself confused here.

Does your internet router/switch have only a single port for connecting a PC? What model?

Are your PCs using wired NICs, wireless NICs, or a mix? And do both of them (or are there more) run XP? If so, home or pro version?

 

If you think your are confused you should be on my end. I was having problems connecting to the internet through the PC that has my Proxy software installed on it. I finally figure it out. I had the use the proxy server box check in the set-up. I unchecked it and everything is working find now. I am now trying to get my e-mail working using the proxy software. No luck so far, but I am still hard at it.

 

Well then Semper Paratus back at ya Marine and let us know how things work out.

 

Well, you know what they say about that succeeding stuff. After I posted my last reply I started looking for another proxy program to try. I had tried Analogx and Free Proxy with no success. I found a couple more, but I didn't have any luck with them on the e-mail part either. I then went back and tried Free Proxy again and it worked. I have no ideal why I just did what I had done several times before, but it did and that's what counts. I guess I just did it right this time. I haven't tried it today so who knows. I am now waiting on my 5.5 rubber duck for my friend's wireless router and a couple of active USB cables to move my hi-gain antenna to the front of my house looking out the bay window. I hope after getting all that installed I can turn off my cable modem and share with my friend. Maybe I could get the other neighbors to join our network and cut our cable bill even more.