wireless bridging

One of my favorite things about my job is that I am constantly forced to learn new things and be challenged. My latest opportunity involves networking a couple buildings on our campus that have never been connected. The Student Life Center is less than 300 feet away with a clear line of sight, and "The House" is 1700 feet away and on the other side of a forest.

I've been considering connecting the SLC wirelessly, but I don't think it will be an option with the house. I met with a guy today from a local company who specializes in fiber optic installation. I'm curious to see what the cost will be to trench from the main building to the house and lay fiber between the two. If we go that route, we will connect the SLC at the same time since it's on the way.

In the mean time, I need to work on getting a quick solution for the SLC. I've had a couple Linksys WAP54G's laying around for a while and have wanted to test them out as a wireless bridge. Today I finally found the motivation to begin testing from Tony Dye at Perimeter Church. Thanks Tony! I'll be curious to see if they run into any weather-related interference - rain, lightning, snow, etc.

After several hours of configuring, upgrading firmware, testing, and almost cursing - success! (sort of). The problem I ran into is that my APs don't support WPA in wireless bridge mode. I have v.2 of the WAP54G, and it's only supported in version 3 or higher. Of course that fact was nonexistent on Linksys' website and I only discovered it when I broke down and asked an online Linksys tech. So, I'm temporarily running WEP to make it work, but I will be upgrading the APs soon to take advantage of WPA2. I have no faith in WEP, but it's better than nothing. I'm ordering some high-gain outdoor antennas, and I'll post pics when I implement this in the buildings. This should be a good solution until we can get fiber out there.