Designed for outdoor use, the DWL-7700AP has the ability to have a single unit cabled to an internet feed. Then using the 802.11a create a wireless connection in a point-to-multipoint configuration where the 802.11b/g radio then provides traditional access point functions. With an included outdoor CAT5e cable, POE Injector, Lightnig arrestors, dual band antennas and a short coax to support optional antenna So while I may have been able to build a device like this, I’m not sure I could have done it as well nor as inexpensively as Dlink…DLink has been shipping a series of purpose built outdoor AP’s that we’ve been using at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) to bring data out of the ocean and back onto dry land. The KiloNalu Near Shore Reef Observatory is a collection of interconnected submerged containers with instruments to measure things like sand movement, currents, temperature, particulates and salinity; with everything being connected back to dry land with an undersea cable.Divers dropping the cables and instruments into the water about 200 yards off Point Panic (near Waikiki). They’re running 600volt (DC) through the cable with 4 strands of single mode fiber in the center. Providing both power and communications the cable surfaces through a sea wall and eventually ends up in a closet outside a bathroom building.Here’s some pictures of pulling the cable through the conduit and then grinding away the armor so that we can terminate the fiber optics. The 3M HotMelt fiber termination system changed about a year ago to a new formulation that melts at a higher temperature. So anyone with the old black oven will need to get the update kit with a white oven in order to reliably use the new connectors.Here’s one of the researchers adjusting the angle of a high gain panel antenna for the wireless bridge link.Our problem was that getting high speed datacomm to a bathroom at a beach park was turning into a nightmare. Either we had to pay to dig up about a 1/2mile of road, or we had to pay for a custom cable pull through already packed conduits by the local telco. Lastly, there are a large number of condominiums in this area and everyone and their uncle has a WiFi router and everyone is at full blast. I counted in excess of 150 access points in view, and the Fluke AnalyzeAir Spectrum Analyzer was indicating almost 80% duty cycle (ie. you could only slide a bit in 20% of the time) on all three 802.11b/g channels. (only 1, 6 and 11 don’t overlap, so you really only have three effective channels on 802.11b). The answer was to go into the 5.8ghz range on 802.11a and get out of the mud…One of the mantras heard all during this install was “…the things we do for science…”, especially as conversations got drowned out by the sound of flushing toilets… Brian Chee is a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld Magazine and is a researcher at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) Technology Industry