You have an office up front and a shop, a scale house, or a second building out back. Both need to be on the same network. Cameras at the back gate need to record to the NVR in the front closet, and the parts counter needs the same file share and phone system as the front desk.
Copper Ethernet is limited to 100 meters, about 328 feet, so anything past that needs either fiber in the ground or a wireless link. Both work. Which one is right depends less on distance than most people expect.
What a point-to-point bridge is
A point-to-point bridge is a pair of radios, one on each building, aimed at each other. Done right, it behaves like a long cable. You get one Ethernet handoff on each side, and your switches, cameras, and phones ride across it the same way they would over fiber.
The catch is that the radios need a clear view of each other.
Line of sight and the part people skip
Two antennas that can see each other is the starting requirement, not the finish line. Radio links also need clearance around the straight path between them, a football-shaped zone called the Fresnel zone. The common rule is to keep at least 60 percent of it clear. If a roofline, a tree line, or a row of stacked equipment pushes into that zone, the link degrades even though the antennas can technically see each other.
The Fresnel zone gets wider as the link gets longer. At 5.8 GHz, a 300 foot hop has a zone radius of roughly 3.5 feet at the midpoint. A one-mile link needs closer to 15 feet. Longer links usually mean getting both radios higher than you first planned. The site walk matters more than the spec sheet, because we have to account for what could be in the path later: a stack of material, a new storage building, or the building somebody already has in mind for the empty pad.
Mounting is part of this. A radio on a flimsy mast that twists in a spring wind will drop the link even with clear line of sight. Bridges want rigid mounts and a safe way to get back up and re-aim later.
5 GHz versus 60 GHz
Two bands cover most yard-scale links, and they trade off against each other.
5 GHz is the workhorse. It handles longer distances, it is forgiving about slight misalignment, and it holds up in weather. It shares spectrum with a lot of other gear, though, so in a busy area the throughput you get is not always the throughput on the box.
60 GHz moves much more data and sees very little interference, because few other devices use it. The tradeoff is that it wants short, clean, tightly aimed paths. Oxygen absorbs it, and rain cuts it much harder than 5 GHz. For a few-hundred-foot hop carrying a lot of camera video, it is a strong option. For a link out to a building a mile off, it usually needs a 5 GHz backup or should just be 5 GHz.
Many 60 GHz radios include a 5 GHz backup on the same path, so a hard rain lowers throughput instead of dropping the link.
Dust, heat, and the West Texas part
Blowing dust does not block these frequencies the way people assume. What dust does is coat radomes and work into enclosures over the years. Heat is the bigger deal. Gear rated for a mild ambient temperature spends July on a metal roof in direct sun, and cheap radios fail there. Check the operating temperature rating, and shade the mount where you can.
Lightning matters just as much. A roof or mast radio is an entry point for surge on the Ethernet run, not just the power side. Grounding the mount and putting an Ethernet surge protector where the cable enters the building are part of the install.
When trenching still wins
Fiber in conduit is the better answer more often than radio salespeople admit. Consider trenching when the path has no workable line of sight, when the ground is already open for other work, when you own the property and plan to stay, or when the link carries something that cannot tolerate weather-related slowdowns.
The fair way to run the numbers is to compare the installed cost of the trench against the installed cost of the radio pair, then look at what is between the buildings. Trench cost is driven by surface and obstacles, so a straight run across open caliche is a different project than crossing a paved drive, a rail spur, or a utility corridor. Locates, boring under pavement, and restoration usually tip the balance. Across a paved yard, a bridge can cost much less than the same span trenched. A short run across open dirt may be cheaper to dig.
Time is the other factor. A bridge can often go up in a day or two. A trench that crosses a road may need permits that take weeks.
Who we are
West Texas Wi-Fi & Networking is a veteran-owned contractor in Lubbock. We design and install commercial Wi-Fi, cameras, access control, and cabling across West Texas, and we hold a Texas Department of Public Safety security license (B31108601) for the camera and access control work. If you want a second set of eyes on your building, book a free site survey or call (806) 370-9434.