The first wireless network here on the farm was based around a full tower containing an Abit BP-6 [1] with 2x366MHz Celerons (running at 400 MHz) into which I h

The first wireless network here on the farm was based around a full tower containing an Abit BP-6 [1] with 2x366MHz Celerons (running at 400 MHz) into which I had placed a PCMCIA to ISA adapter containing an Engenius Senao 200mw PCMCIA Card w/MMCX Connectors [1] and two external antennas. That BP-6 - which used to be my development machine until I got something a bit more up to date - was fairly overloaded since it also hosted out mail, web services, surveillance cameras, file/print/etc services, media services and more. Still, it worked and covered quite a big area both due to the high-power wifi adapter as well as the fact that the antennas were placed on a high central place. I built it in 2003 and replaced it with a WRT54GL after a few years. The WRT54GL was killed by Thor and replaced with an Asus RT-N16 which also got killed by lightning, replaced with another RT-N16 which - you guessed it - got killed by lightning after which I replaced it with a host of cheapo 802.11g routers which also got blown up. Then I installed some large surge protectors (i.e. large and overly expensive MOVs [2]) after which these problems were solved. I now use a bunch of Xiaomi "routers" (flashed with OpenWRT) as access points, leaving the routing to a LXC container on the server-under-the-stairs. The BP-6 stands in the "museum" - that is stuffed away in the barn next to a number of other relics from the past. [1] https://www.keenansystems.com/store/engenius_senao_200mw_pcmcia_card_with_mmcx_connectors_2511-cd-plus-ext2.htm https://www.keenansystems.com/store/engenius_senao_200mw_pcm... [2] https://components101.com/articles/metal-oxide-varistor-mov-overview https://components101.com/articles/metal-oxide-varistor-mov-...