Well, heh.. was going to write up a better explanation, but not a lot of techies out there and far less understand the reason for adding wifi at the ranch...but..
We have the cabin, and on the bathroom roof, we installed a 38ft tall antenna. That has an omni-directional on top of it and then we have been working on a self-contained WIFI access point device that is solar powered. We have a 360 degree camera on top of that as well.
That went on top of the hill behind us now and has line of sight to 2 of the farthest areas on the ranch. We plan to add one more to the hill behind the 3rd. That should blanket the entire ranch.
Than, we have a "Mini Solar Cam" that costs us about.. $110-ish and we can then place that at each feeder or anywhere else and we are able to access and view all areas of the ranch live.
We have all of that working right now, just have not built/placed the last WAP and then the minis.
Let me see if I can get a screen shot of one of the test cameras.. sec...
Okay.. while the email is arriving to me.. let me explain the three photos.
At the TOP of the 38ft antenna, is our most powerful camera. No, it is not a really really powerful one, we are looking at costs, so this is less than $300.. we can get a REALLY powerful one later.. but, it is zoomed into the front gate that is about 1000 ft away. It has a defroster on the lens and a windshield wiper.. lol and sits approximately 46ft in the air.
The 2nd camera is a test camera that sits 138 yards away and is a 5x zoom. We will be replacing it with a better camera next visit that also has a 20x zoom.
The third photo is a mini cam. It currently sits close to the feeder but will be replaced with a 5x zoom and 360 pan tilt, so we can see all the way around. We are debating setting it about 5ft above the feeder.. heh.
So, all I need now is the gate trigger.
In a couple months, I will post plans for how this is all set up so you can all get it done AND offer assistance to help set others up, since we all love to see our ranches when we cannot get there.
Also, we route them all through a server we set up (nothing powerful or expensive) which allows ONE video link to be pulled and shared with anyone so not a lot of bandwidth usage) and also allows us to overlay weather info and anything else.
Russ