Cool thanks chaps. I reckon I am going to give two of these a punt http://www.wifigear.co.uk/ubiquiti-airgrid-m5-airmax... 27dBi should give me the best chance with a few trees in the way.

Trees get wet, so might lose signal when raining

Agreed, trees are the biggest problem on my village system. One year everything fine, next year no signal and a tree has grown higher and is blocking.

Leaf Growth in the Spring may also block the signal.

All of those UHF/Centimetric band devices can encounter that sort of trouble.

To emphasise what others have mentioned, a CLEAR Line of Sight is required at all times, otherwise it may become the "Line of Sighed" posted earlier.

Hi,

My thoughts...

1) Go for 5.5GHz to 5.7GHz rather than 5.8GHz as then there is no need for the Ofcom licence

2) 5km is easy with line of sight and aliging units is also easy at that distance (just use a pair of binoculars to spot the other end, then point in that direction)

3) For ease of use, I would tend to suggest a couple of Ubiquiti units like these: http://www.wifi-stock.co.uk/details/ubiquiti_nanosta... Just set one up as AP and the other as Station/Client and make sure you select correct frequency band.

cheers

Peter