So Cal Free Net.org

The kit is based on the D-Link 810+ Ethernet to Wireless Bridge (manual) and D-Link R60AT antenna. Check Pricegrabber (the following links) for the latest prices for the bridge and the antenna. Lately Amazon prices for the radio and antenna have been competitive too (especially with no CA sales tax and often free shipping).

There's nothing too special about the radio in this kit. Nor the antenna. But together its a convenient and well priced indoor close-range CPE package: small, fits on a shelf, can be pre-configured with the SSID. The antenna is compact and fits directly with no loss or hassle from a pigtail. Having a directional really helps block out some of the other APs (those noisy and ubiquitous SBC 2wire boxes) that may otherwise interfere. A cantenna will add a lot of range and more noise suppression, though its a bigger package on the window sill.

The radio lacks one important feature in our opinion: no signal strength reading. On the other hand, it has another very nice feature: the ability to lock to a particular MAC. This is handy if there are multiple identical SSIDs, but only one gives solid reception, or if you're building a mini-relay and don't want the bridge to loop back to the repeating AP.

One other minor weirdness: Sometimes the kits just won't associate with a particular AP. We've only seen this once, with a homebrew AP, but its very consistent. Switching radio cards in the AP doesn't fix it. Its not a problem in similar home brew APs elsewhere, but we mention it here for completeness.

Budget tip: if you buy the similar DWL-800+ repeater/AP, you can reflash
them to be 810+ units (described here). Best of all, they're typically half the price.

Outdoor CPE

The word is that the best price/feature combination for an outdoor CPE is the Tranzeo TR-CPE200-15 which can be found by Google and Froogle for < $200 (Sep 04).

Unlike putting the D-Link kit on the roof, this is a waterproof box with high power 200mW radio and a 13dBi panel, powered by PoE. Very nice.