This is going to be kind of wordy and probably not very well explained, so let me please apologize in advance.
In fact if you want you could probably just skip on down to the bottom and get right to the point.

Ok heres the situation:
I live in the Pacific Northwest on one of the San Juan Islands.
The only internet available to us out here is dial-up.
No broadband, no DSL. Nothing...

I currently have a dial-up and the best connection I can get is 26.4kbps (due to distance from the CO), which is killing me.
There's a wireless internet company across the bay that can beam me a wireless internet signal, but the install is $450 and $99 a month US.
Thats a little spendy...

Now, theres a guy down the hill from me who signed up for their service and is recieving this signal, and piping it into a boosted Apple Airport up on top of a phone pole. He then lets his neighbors who can recieve the signal use it and they then split the cost of the $99 bucks a month.
He said I could jump on the bandwagon if I could get the signal.

Unfortunately, with the wireless card in my PC I get nothing.
I live about 300 feet up on the side of a mountain, and he's down at about sea level no more than 3-400 feet from me.
My question is, is there any sort of device or apparatus, I can get to maybe improve my chances of recieving his signal?
A directional antenna I can put up on the roof or something?
Or am I doomed to have to wait a couple of years for DSL to get here?
I currently have a little linksys wireless network in the house between my 2 PC's and my Tivo.

Other than this little issue I love living here.

Heres a pretty picture from my backyard for having the patience to get to the end of my babbling diatribe.