This past Wednesday (after work), I experimented with a wireless distribution system (WDS) installation at a local cafe.
What makes this WDS installation unique is that there’s a thick concrete wall, metal rafters and a big neon sign that I have to work around. Can you say, ‘i-n-t-e-r-f-e-r-e-n-c-e’? Yes, good times that started with stock Linksys routers.
On one end, I have a Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 router running the DD-WRT v23 SP1 firmware, with a set of Linksys 7 dBi antennas. The other end has a Linksys WRT54G v2.0 router running the same firmware with a set of generic 9 dBi antennas. The former is the host (office), with the latter being the client (cafe). Output transmission power is set to 200 mW (stock is 28 mW) for both. Yes, I tried lower transmission power, but to no avail (going from 28 mW to 100 mW yielded less than a ten percent increase in signal strength).
The distance between the two routers is a mere 100 feet (two floors though). Signal strength you ask? It’s less than ten percent! Yes. Pathetic. Hey! It works, until…