We're all used to how a television connects to the local transmitter, well connecting to an FramBroadband node is quite similar in many ways. You only get a decent reception if you've got an aerial on the roof, the cable running down to the TV isn't too long and you can see the transmitter from your house without hills and other large obstacles in the way. Now that's when the TV company is pumping out megawatts of power, wireless computer networks only give out less than one tenth of a watt. As a result of this we need to be even more particular.

You need 'line of sight', that is, your antenna needs to be able to 'see' the antenna it is connecting to - unless this is possible from your location it will be more difficult for you to connect. You also need to be within a reasonable distance; anything more than a mile will need a good external antenna. However, provided you have a reasonable line of sight distances of several miles are possible.

Wireless Cards

Whether you're running Microsoft Windows, Linux or Mac OS, you can get a wireless network card for your computer. Make sure you get one that is 802.11b or 802.11b/g compatible and has a connector that allows you to use an external antenna.

Recommended Wireless Cards:

• Netgear MA311GE 802.11b Wireless PCI Adapter
• Linksys Instant Wireless USB Adapter
• Buffalo Wireless Cardbus 54/11mbps

External Antenna?

Wireless network cards on their own are only designed for connecting to other computers within the same building. Unless you live across the road from where you want to connect, you will need to use a proper antenna in order to connect to the network. Remember the signal is very weak and you will need to be able to see the antenna you're connecting to.

If you want to connect to the network to receive bandwidth then you will need a directional antenna aligning it as carefully as possible.

Recommended Antennas:

• Indoor 7dB Directional
• Outdoor 7dB Directional
• Outdoor Patch Antenna
• Outdoor 2.4Ghz - Poyntings Yagi

Connecting the Antenna to the Network Card

Obviously you've got to use a cable to join the antenna to the computer, but you can't just buy this from your local DIY store. The signal is very weak, anything but top quality cable will lose a lot of the signal before it reaches your computer. You need to use a high quality cable which is not cheap but it does a very good job. The shorter the cable the less of the signal will be lost, so try to think about this when siting your antenna.

The cable has quite large connectors at each end, but the connector on your wireless card is quite small. To connect them together you need a short patch lead which is often called a pigtail.

Recommended Cable:

• HDF 200
• HDF 400

Configuring the Computer

Okay, so you've got the antenna on the roof, the cable running down into your study and the pigtail joining it to your wireless card. Install the drivers for your card and use the configuration tool to search for wireless networks. You need to join a network with the name 'frambroadband' in the title, there maybe others, but they won't be part of our network. You won't need to enter any WEP settings or authenticate with the network, just join the network with our name in the title. The tool will tell you how strong the signal is and you will want to use this to adjust your antenna (even the smallest of a degree can make quite a difference). Your computer should pick up an IP address automatically and you can start using the network.

If you're wanting to share your cablemodem or ADSL connection with the network you need to enable Internet Connection Sharing. In Windows 2000 or XP you can use the 'Internet Connection Sharing Wizard'; in Mac OS X you can just click the 'Start' button in the Internet Connection Sharing Control panel.

Alternatives

We've covered the most straightforward way of being part of the network, but there are alternatives which are sometimes cheaper and, in certain circumstances, easier to setup.

A wireless bridge can be connected directly to the antenna cable and then relatively cheap ethernet cable can be used for the rest of the journey down to the computer. The wireless bridge copes with all the clever wireless stuff and presents the computer with straightforward ethernet. You still need to configure the bridge to connect to the FramBroadband network, but the computer only need be configured as if it were connected to an ethernet network.

In our professional installation we use the Linksys WET11 wireless bridge although there are many others. Just make sure it is possible to connect an external antenna to it and upgrade it with the latest firmware.

If you're wanting to share your connection with the network you can use a wireless broadband router which saves you from leaving a power hungry PC on 24/7.

Recommended Routers:

• Several Linksys Wireless Routers