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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Any wireless LAN experts here?
Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 11:20 AM on 07.15.09 |
->> Anyone have any experience running a small to medium wireless lan? I am looking to get rid of having to run cat5 to 10 or more viewing stations every weekend. Anyone know what issues I may run into getting say 10 viewing stations with 802.11g cards to play nice while all 10 are demanding images from my event server?
What are the REAL WORLD limitations on the number of machines that a wireless lan can really support? |
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Robert Longhitano, Photographer
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North Wales | PA | USA | Posted: 11:50 AM on 07.15.09 |
->> Eric,
Any wireless router will do this. Just put wifi cards in all you pc's and have them point the the DHCP server on the router or asign them static ip address.
You WILL take a big hit on speed serving pages to your viewing stations. |
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Kirby Yau, Photographer, Assistant
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 12:02 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> Eric, if you are serious about a wireless network, wireless N is the only way to go.
Routers such as the Linksys WRT400N and the Apple Airport Extreme (2009)are capable of emitting/capturing a dedicated N signal which will dramatically speed up file transfers.
Other factors that come into play are other wireless networks, interference from other devices on the same spectrum.
Good Luck. |
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John Plassenthal, Photographer
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Vandalia | OH | USA | Posted: 1:11 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> Eric,
As has been said wireless should work just fine, however, the size of the preview files that get transmitted will determine how fast/slow the viewing stations seem to run.
Linksys makes several good routers that are reasonably priced, and while wireless N does promise greater speeds, it is still a draft standard so to make it work right every card will need to be the same manufacturer as the router. They don't have universal compatibility yet. i.e. the Dell N card for my laptop will only connect in wireless g mode to my linksys n router.
Some simple advise in terms of setup. As soon as you get the router change the default frequency and ip address. Most are set to channel 6 and 192.168.1.1. Leaving the channel at 6 almost guarantees interference from nearby businesses or homes with the same gear. Leaving the default IP range also can cause conflict. I always change the 3rd number to something different in the 10-100 range. |
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Steve King, Photographer
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Ann Arbor | MI | USA | Posted: 2:37 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> You will want to use N so you can setup more secure encryption, so that people with a laptop can't just connect to your wireless lan. I would check the speed and reliability in advance too, since just moving off of channel 6 to avoid nearby AP routers does help with your speed (sharing channel 6 reduces the speed to 1/x with x the number of shared devices) it also doesn't allow for channel hopping that adjusts for conflicts. Pinning yourself down to 1 or 11 doesn't help you either since you're then at either end of the spectrum, and without knowing how reliable either is, it's a crap shoot.
Also you will want to check to see if there are any wireless phones in the area that use 2.4ghz, and also see if there are microwaves in use too. Microwaves "transmit" a full spectrum of "white noise" interference that will block all your channels while it's in use, effectively crashing your network while the nachos are heating up. :-)
Don't worry much about the speed since you should be able to get at least 54mb rated speeds with the devices mentioned. |
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Rene Mireles, Photographer
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Holland | MI | USA | Posted: 2:47 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> Couple of suggestions,
Use wireless N,
Static Map your Ip address to workstations, and add them in the wireless router table as well
Use Mac Address security to prevent freeloaders trying to use wireless and disable Broadcasting of SSID
WPA security should be good enough,
Keep the hardwired router and cat 5 as a back up , you never know when you'll need it.
I would still hardwire the server to the wireless router since that one will be the most active. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 3:34 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> Thanks everyone! I already use static addressing. Been doing that for a while even in wired settings. The network at our events is not internet enabled. Long story short I DID want people to jump on my lan way back (last year) when I started considering this. If I can get people to view the images from the event while they are in the stands or otherwise not at the tents that's fine by me (I think).
The first order of business is to cut the cord between the server and view stations. I'd like to be able to set up 'pods' of stations to break up congestion and in some venues to take advantage of areas where people migrate to. Sort of like putting slot machines next to the bathrooms ;).
I'll keep the wired system handy in case of problems. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 4:07 PM on 07.15.09 |
| ->> Also keep in mind that more wireless transmit power is not always good in a multi-node setup. Most wireless cards allow you to set the transmit power to either low or high. In a close-proximity situation, you want all of the cards set to low. This will help out with interference and collisions. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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McCall | ID | US | Posted: 6:32 PM on 07.15.09 |
->> Just use an 801.11N router like everyone is talking about. It'll actually have more bandwidth than a standard 10/100 router (and honestly you'd probably be fine with 802.11G)
Generally if you get the router and wireless cards from the same company, you're going to have better luck. |
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