WiGLE.net

My situation is nearly the same as Flight Ace but with small differences.
I camp/fish on an island that can be driven to.
I have made an agreement with a party on the mainland to use his wireless network.

The distance between where I go and his net is about three miles direct line-of-sight, I can actually see his house.
I am at odds at to which card to get for my laptop, the Orinoco or the Senao (or other).
I would like one with high power, maybe I need the 200mw version, or will 100mw be ok?
I have read SO MANY different things about the cards that it has me confused.

I also plan to use either a Yagi or an old Directv dish for my antenna.

What card would be recommended that has the ability to plug in an external antenna? I need 801.11G because that is what he is running.

In addition, at the moment he is running a Linky router inside the house, will I need to buy him an external antenna or perhaps with high power and a good pointing of my dish I can see him?

Thanks ya'll, I hope you can help me with this.

a three mile link is routinely done by wireless ISP's, but they don't usually use consumer gear like this. for a three mile link you will probably need a gain antenna on both ends. even a very high powered one is physically small to deal with. remember the higher the gain, the narrower the beamwidth (think of a candle compared to a flashlight) and the more critical a stable fixed mount becomes. but? try it first with just a ton of gain on your end. it could work.

If he replaces his Linksys rubber ducks with a beam/grid/yagi/dish that may also affect his local coverage for his portable devices. it will work a LOT better in the aimed direction and could work worse in his house behind/off to the side of it.

even if you have LOS, remember that while trees themselves don't hurt wifi too badly, the leaves soak it up. make sure you have clear LOS year-round (or at least when you want to use it).

go for a higher power card, if possible! the antenna will multiply it's transmit/receive, the more you put in the more you get out. more power won't help your receive of course.

i don't have any experience with G cards, so i can't advise you there. i think most recent AP's have a choice to use with B or G. G is potentially faster, but B with a solid link is probably already much faster than his upstream connection.