Extend range on wireless router?

Hey all,
I've got a Linksys wireless router in my house, but want to be able to access the web from a laptop in my gunshop, which is in another building 4 walls and 75 feet away. What's the best way to accomplish this?

linksys/cisco makes extenders

http://homestore.cisco.com/en-us/adapters/linksys-RE1000-range-extender-bridge_stcVVproductId136607179VVviewprod.htm

this is the easiest and best solution i have used in quite a while.

link

Wondering if replacing my router with this would work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168090

i've been very anxious to try one of those.

most likely the case no matter what original router is, you would need to purchase a repeater to add inbetween.

Direct bury Ethernet cable.

closest to Direct line of sight you can, or least structural interference.

And your laptop will have to have the transmission power to shout back to your router, either the conversation will be decidedly one way.

How does one determine transmission power?

I like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168065

EnGenius ECB3500 Wireless Access Point/Client Bridge Long Range 802.11b/g up to 108Mbps with 5dBi external antenna / 600mW High Power for Long Range

Great success with them.

I just installed one of these to replace my 7-year old Linksys WRT54g. It works GREAT and is cheap for what you get. I put it upstairs & it covers my whole house easily with very good signal strength in my master bedroom, which is downstairs about 80 feet away through 2 brick walls.

If you can get on outlet in your house tied to the run that goes to your garage, you might be able to use one of the powerline networking adapters and not have to play with fancy antennas or burying new wires.

Did you just suggest to run high voltage wiring and low voltage wiring in the same conduit?

I never claimed to be an electrician.....

There are a lot a variables when making a decision like that. Best bet would probably be an external Bridge on the shop with a AP inside, which is not exactly cheap to do. Assuming you can connect to the wireless standing out side your shop, otherwise you would need to move the router or add an AP to the out side of the house. Then again good old fashion cable is always a good option, pain to install but very low maintenance. However, with out signal readings there is no way to really give a definite answer. If you were to use a war driver or a net stumbler to get some signal readings from outside the shop and inside the shop it would be much easier to give you a more definite answer.

And if I knew what the heck you were talking about, I probably wouldn't have had to ask in the first place, LOL!

Well, I will try to tone it down. Can you detect the wireless network on your laptop from with in the shop currently? If not can you detect it from out side the shop near the shops wall closest to the house? If not can you detect it from out side the wall of the house closest to the shop? At any point that you said yes follow these instructions Link. What was the Signal dB? Depending on what your signal is and at what range you are form the router still will help narrow down what you need. Also dose either building have metal siding as that will significantly cut down on signal strength.

Test results:

Inside house, 3' from router: -20
Inside house, inside exterior door, 25' from router, 2 walls: -62
Outside house, 25' from router, 3 walls, exterior wall has metal siding: -77
Outside house, 45' from router, 1/2 way to shop, 3 walls, exterior wall has metal siding: LOST

-80 is about the worst your signal can get before you no longer can get a useable connection, so getting -77 just out side the house is not a good sign. To do it right you would probably want two directional outdoor bridges. One mounted on the house and one mounted on the shop, pointed towards each other. Something like this Link or a little higher gain antenna like this Link You would then have to run a Ethernet cable to the bridge on the house and one in to the computer at the shop or set up another AP, Access Point, or a wireless router to broadcast in the shop. So your looking at about $150-250 easily for equipment. If you were to move your router in the house to a room on the same wall as the shop, preferably with line of sight to the building aka can see the building from the router that includes looking through windows, and could get a useable signal at the wall of the shop you could probably get away with a wireless repeater Link, or a single bridge mounted on the shop. Upgrading to a router with one that has a higher power wireless card or higher gain antennas isn't going to help either, as the laptop will not have a high enough transmit power to reach the router unless you get like a 24dB antenna on the router and those tend to be about 1-2' wide. So that is the opinion of a former Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) technician.

Good news! Your house has a tinfoil hat, so no government mind control waves will get in. Sleep easy.

Bad news.. works both way, so no WiFi will get out.


Edit: can you MS-Paint as building layout from A to B??

I't sounding like a Home Powerline Network setup might be a better and simpler answer - assuming you can get one plugged into either end of your feed to the garage.

Fast, crappy, and not to scale, but here it is:




I could probably bury a cable pretty easily, maybe that's the way to go?

I'd use wireless bridges to link the two buildings. I'm fond of the Ubiquiti stuff

I actually use a set of Ubiquiti wireless bridge to backup data (and send a few video streams) off-site. I've also used them at several remote buildings to send IP camera streams back to a central AP for recording.

If you can bury a cable that's going to be the best answer from a network speed and reliability standpoint. Don't use normal indoor cable though.

http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/cablingcat5/f/cat5outdoors.htm
http://www.buy.com/pr/product.aspx?sku=214425300&sellerid=18349122

He'll need about 125 feet. 75 feet between the two structures, not counting any vertical distances or placement of the drops within the buildings.

something like this
Outdoor-Waterproof-Ethernet-Direct-Burial

I just used a pair of these to add a network socket in the loft for a CCTV box - work great:

http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=1862&model=TL-PA211KIT

This. Good stuff.

While I love the Engenius I recommended earlier, I DEFINITELY love the PLA407's I have from Zyxel.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833181127

I've got 4 throughout my house and they rock!!

That's exactly what I was suggesting. If OP can get one plugged into the garage feeder circuit in the house and another in the garage itself, life could be good.

The same 220vac service that feeds my house also feeds the shop; the shop isn't fed from the house's service panel.

I'm not sure how many breakerbox hops the signal can take... It could be worth a try though.

I'd really prefer that this be 'one and done', as opposed to an experiment. I'll leave that to you guys that know what you're doing.

well, according to http://compnetworking.about.com/od/homenetworking/ig/Home-Network-Diagrams/Powerline-Home-Network-Diagram.htm

It's really starting to sound like the most reliable way to go.

Personal opinion is go with the Under Ground burial cable. It will be a pain to install, but as long as you don't manage to cut it or have something chew it off they are almost completely maintenance free. Not to mention it should be the cheapest option, as long as your not paying some one to trench the cable for you. You would just need to either get the wire ends put on, or barrow/purchase the tools so you can do it your self. Worst case you hire an electrician briefly to lay the cable and do the ends, then you don't have to worry about purchasing the cable or the ends but it would be more expensive then doing it your self. You would then just have to hook the one end of the cable to your router in the house, and the other either directly to the laptop or another router/access point to broad cast in the shop. The bridges like my previous post had laid out would be easier to install, but bridges are electronics. Just like any other electronic device they can fail, and if they do then you have to replace them, cables tend to fail considerably less often.

If you can swing it, when dragging a line like this its always a good idea to pull two. You can leave one as a dark spare or hook them both up and run two different devices (2 computers, wireless AP and printer, etc)

Put a Pringles can over the antenna and point it at your garage. BOOM directional antenna

I'm not a network pro but i don't see why you can't get a signal now. I have 4 walls to my garage at the shortest path with more and along angles in others parts. Have you tried more than one wireless device? I've seen some laptops and phones that wouldn't even see my router while others had a great signal. I suggest trying one of these http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-template/long-dsh-range-dsh-clients/Page.bok# depending on what band your router uses.

If you use b and can find one of these WU221L that were also sold as compex wlu-11a. They work very well when compared to all the others i have seen that people buy at bestbuy or walmart but aren't the fastest these days and doubt they work with newer encryption methods.

What the one poster mentioned about netstumbler, it is scanning program that can help trouble shoot connection problems. Depending on what operating system you have there are a few options but i usually use http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ .

Btw are you only wanting to be able to connect your laptop or multiple devices? What router are you using now?


ETA: I missed the post were you gave your signal strength(didn't know win7 did that) and mentioned metal siding. I'd say try one of those usb adapters i mentioned though since they can be handy and it might work.

Wireless is great until someone runs the microwave for popcorn or the 2.4 ghz phone rings.

thats why if you know what your doing you don't use strictly 2.4 ghz equipment and more expensive units still use 802.11 A.

link

link

I haven't even seen a new 2.4 phone for a while. Thought they all went to 5 and 1.9 (dect) a while ago.

All my 2.4 phones are in the yardsale box,

After reading all the suggestions - thanks everybody - I think direct-bury Ethernet cable is the most reliable solution. My next question is: what to do once inside the shop? A socket to plug into would work, but it's conceivable that the laptop won't be the only device to need a signal. Can I run the cable to a router in the shop, or is there a better solution?

you'll want to terminate both ends of the buried cable with female jacks.
you won't need a router in the technical sense at the side building, but you will need a wireless access point and probably want a switch. fortunately, most home office "wireless routers" are actually 1) router. 2) Ethernet switch. 3) wireless access point.

Get a 2nd wireless router, 1) disable it's dhcp service. 2) don't plug anything into it's "WAN" port. 3) configure it's wireless security with same settings as your original wireless router.

you MIGHT also, if possible use, shield cable and ground the them... but that might be overkill on your project.. (but code for real buildings. )
if you side building on the same electrical circuits as your house? more on this later

Same 220vac that feeds the house also feed the shop, but each has its own service panel.

Both buildings share common ground?

The possible issue is the Ethernet cable, being a copper conductor, will somehow ending up being a ground conduit from other building to the other if your building's electrical is not grounded correctly or have different grounding potentials or whatever the electrical term is.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/19686-42-suggestions-connecting-buildings-feet-apart

Same 220vac service and ground to both buildings.

That's what I would personally suggest. That way you'll get full speed on your computer. Then if you still want wifi you can always plug the cable into another wifi router. in fact you'd be able to have a separate password for your shop's wifi that way.

Ok, should I connect the 'feed' end of the cable to my existing router, or split it from the cable feeding the router?

"Feed" end? got pics... i only know of male and female termination of cable ends.

you connecting to your router... for your purposes everything goes thru the router.

By 'feed', I meant 'source'.
Do I connect the new line - to the shop - to my existing router, or should I split the line from the modem that is connected to the router? Keep in mind I'll probably put a router in the shop. I guess I'm asking if the signal can go through two routers or not.

ETA: I'll probably use this cable.

Run it off your existing router. You do not "split" network cabling like you do RG-6. Every cable is its own cable... there are no "splitters." In network parlance, if you need more ports for more devices, you plug your cable into a device called a "Switch."

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