Outdoor, long-range wifi

The Savior

To make a longish story short, I need a way to hook up an ethernet-enabled video camera to a home network. The rub is that the camera will be outdoors, about 150-200 feet away from the nearest computer. So the way I see it in my mind is:
<camera>---ethernet---<wireless bridge> ~~~~~~air~~~~~~ <wireless router>----<yay!>

However, the outdoor wifi products I am finding are all advertised as access points, not bridges. Also, though budget is not a huge concern, it would be nice to keep it under two or three hundred bucks (assuming that I will need to buy a long-range router along with the bridge). Do any of you have any experience with this sort of thing? What should I buy?

Feral

Purchase a Linksys WRT54GL.

Flash using DD-WRT and configure it to be a wireless bridge.

Put router in a weatherproof enclosure (I suggest talking to that company's salespeople about the specifics of your installation before hitting the "Buy" button).

Profit.

The Savior

I'm most worried about range, will G give me enough oomph to go across 200 feet? The local computer shop had some 7 dbi antennas, is it likely that those would be enough to make it work?

Feral

Are there any obstacles in the way (including tree branches or walls)?
How high up off the ground is the equipment going to be? (Hint: the higher, the better.)

200 feet outdoors is iffy. It should work, but not as reliably or as consistently as the hardware manufacturers would like you to believe.

And by the way, a directional antenna on the bridge would be markedly superior to a simple high-gain antenna. Directional antennas at both sides of the span would be ideal.

The Savior

The enclosure could be fairly high off the ground if necessary. I'm not sure how well something as conspicuous as a directional antenna would go over, TBH. I also just remembered that DDWRT has ability to increase the transmission power, and now I'm feeling a lot better about the feasibility of the project. Thanks for the help!

Thomamelas

The Savior wrote: »

To make a longish story short, I need a way to hook up an ethernet-enabled video camera to a home network. The rub is that the camera will be outdoors, about 150-200 feet away from the nearest computer. So the way I see it in my mind is:
<camera>---ethernet---<wireless bridge> ~~~~~~air~~~~~~ <wireless router>----<yay!>

However, the outdoor wifi products I am finding are all advertised as access points, not bridges. Also, though budget is not a huge concern, it would be nice to keep it under two or three hundred bucks (assuming that I will need to buy a long-range router along with the bridge). Do any of you have any experience with this sort of thing? What should I buy?

Since I deal with this alot, how are you going to power the camera?

The Savior

There's a well pump near the camera that we're going to run power from.

lunchbox12682

If price isn't a big issue, I think draft N wireless will get you more range.