Extending wireless range.

[laserblazer]

We've just bought a place in Portugal which is around 250m from my Daughter's house. We can see their house from our roof. Can anyone suggest a reliable way that I can extend the range of my laptop to access their router? Preferably without doing anything their end.

[SYNACK]

You will need a wireless card that can support an external antenna or to mod your existing one to take an external connector. You can then hook up a directional antenna to your laptop that will focus both its reception and transmission that may enable you to connect. You could even make a cantanna.

 

http://mtarena.blogspot.com/2006/06/add-external-antenna-sma-connector.html

http://repair4laptop.org/wireless_lan_antennae.html

 

edit:

and

 

http://www.netgear.co.uk/extra/b_wirelessantenna_ant24d18.php

 

with a cable

 

http://www.netgear.co.uk/extra/b_wirelessantenna_cable.php

 

this shop looks good

 

http://www.lanshop.co.uk/productslist.aspx?CategoryID=53063&onspecialoffer=False

Edited January 29, 2011 by SYNACK

[laserblazer]

Thanks, I'm considering a cantenna as it will be cheap and I won't have lost much if it's a failure.

[m25man]

It's unlikely that you will be able to make your laptop pickup your daughters wifi router without some hardware as @SYNACK suggested but if you have Line of Sight from roof top then I would definately consider using something like these to build your own bridge.

 

These are crazy cheap, and are setup in a few minutes, POE (included).

 

We use Ubiquiti now for all of our bridging requirements and after I posted my trials last year I have seen several others on Edugeek using them as well.

 

I have a 5.4Ghz bridge linking my house to my workshop at over 200Mbs, it's so rock solid I have even run iSCSI over it:eek:

I was out Friday installing another 5Ghz Bridge, this is the clients second link. The first has been up for 12 months without so much as a dropped packet!

 

These guys wipe the floor with the competition on price and performance and you certainly wont be taking a chance with them they work and thats all there is to it.

 

You could try just one unit on a pole and connect it to your own Wifi network.

Configure it as a "Station" (client) with your daughters ssid and encryption settings this may be enough to get you hooked in to her wireless LAN but better still buy two and create a transparent bridge because you can use it for so many things like CCTV and VoiP especially if youre not going to be out there all the time!

 

Im about to trial their UniFi system as well, with FREE Virtual Management Controller!

Just what this Forum needs some decent Wifi at a fraction of Ruckus at Xirrus prices:D

 

I just love the little check box in the GUI on this kit that says " Obey Regulatory Rules", because if you uncheck it your ERP goes up to a whole 1 Watt, put that into a 28db Gain Antenna and watch your neighbours cry....

[maniac]

m25man's idea looks better than what I've done for the same problem, but I may as well tell you as it's another way of doing it.

 

I've linked a friends flat back to his mums house probably about 150m away, and I did it for £70 using really cheap access points and external attenna from TPlink. We thought we'd see how far away we could get it to reach before we put the second set in, after installing the first one on his mums roof. I'm not sure on the exact distance, but it did approaching 500metres which was as far away as we could get from the house and still have line of sight. It went further than that, but the speed started dropping off once we were out of sight.

 

I used two of these

TL-WA701ND

 

With two of these

TL-ANT2409A

 

And to extend the antenna cable if needed

TL-ANT24EC3S

 

Set them both up in bridge mode, line of sight on the attennas and the connection was flawless.

 

Incidently the access points come with a crude form of POE injector for powering them, dead handy when the access point needs to be in the attic, and you've not got a powerpoint up there.

 

Mike.

Edited January 30, 2011 by maniac

[mac_shinobi]

Not sure if it will work as not sure how they work exactly and cost wise not sure if it will be something that you would want to try or may even state in the specs if it will or wont do this but

 

Those 2 mains power sockets with an RJ45 port on the bottom of them

 

TP-Link 85Mbps Powerline Ethernet Adapter TL-PA101 > Memory Cards, Memory Sticks & More

 

Maplin> network over mains

 

Devolo 200Mbps AV 200 Starter Kit Free Delivery : Homeplug Adaptors : Maplin

 

I know it states a range of 200m on the last link, but curious if you plug one in your daughters house and one in your house ??

 

Although that may be a lot more then 200m due to having to go across the electric lines etc so will most likely be an epic fail ??

 

Other thought again possibly an expensive one is Ruckus do a wireless access point - just curious what sort of range that would get although money might be an issue - think it was the 7300 type series on here

[plexer]

Im about to trial their UniFi system as well, with FREE Virtual Management Controller!

Just what this Forum needs some decent Wifi at a fraction of Ruckus at Xirrus prices:D

 

I just love the little check box in the GUI on this kit that says " Obey Regulatory Rules", because if you uncheck it your ERP goes up to a whole 1 Watt, put that into a 28db Gain Antenna and watch your neighbours cry....

 

That unifi system looks good ok they don't have the beamforming etc... of ruckus but they are compact n access points which are managed and at a price of $199 for 3 would be perfect for smaller sites and primaries as well, may get some myself to play with.

 

Ben

[m25man]

@maniac's solution will definitely work in theory although there is always the feeder loss element to calculate.

It depends on how good your connectors and cable are and of course the length between AP and antenna.

The losses at 2.4ghz over 10m is significant but more importantly is the noise that can be collected along the way.

Whilst the 9db antenna compensates for the losses it does nothing for the S/NR and whilst you may get a lock and pass packets you can end up with so many re-transmissions that the throughput is unsatisfactory.

 

Hence when setting up true wifi bridges we prefer to use equipment that delivers the RF output at the antenna end and connect this directly into the array.

The result is virtually 0 insertion loss and with array panels providing gain factors of 8x or more your ERP is increased from the meagre 400mw that the AP puts out to a stonking level that should travel several miles rather than the few meters needed!

 

@mac_shinobi's Power line networking solution is unlikely to work across buildings (eg House to House) especially at that distance for many reasons but most notably is it's inability to hop Phases.

Unless the houses share a phase, which is common in many UK houses/apartments the networking signals get lost very quickly and are badly affected by noise levels inherent in the cabling.

The latest offerings are now approaching Gigabit speeds which is fantastic for connecting your Internet enabled TV to your router or Media player on the same AC ring but not between houses.

 

Interestingly I once used 200mb adapters between house and workshop with the network travelling across the 180ft power line buried in my garden, the best throughput I could get was about 5mb which dropped out everytime the outside temperature dropped below zero.

 

Sorry for the long post but when you're wanting to choose a solution and take it out to Portugal you really want it to work first time without hassle.

[mac_shinobi]

@maniac's solution will definitely work in theory although there is always the feeder loss element to calculate.

It depends on how good your connectors and cable are and of course the length between AP and antenna.

The losses at 2.4ghz over 10m is significant but more importantly is the noise that can be collected along the way.

Whilst the 9db antenna compensates for the losses it does nothing for the S/NR and whilst you may get a lock and pass packets you can end up with so many re-transmissions that the throughput is unsatisfactory.

 

Hence when setting up true wifi bridges we prefer to use equipment that delivers the RF output at the antenna end and connect this directly into the array.

The result is virtually 0 insertion loss and with array panels providing gain factors of 8x or more your ERP is increased from the meagre 400mw that the AP puts out to a stonking level that should travel several miles rather than the few meters needed!

 

@mac_shinobi's Power line networking solution is unlikely to work across buildings (eg House to House) especially at that distance for many reasons but most notably is it's inability to hop Phases.

Unless the houses share a phase, which is common in many UK houses/apartments the networking signals get lost very quickly and are badly affected by noise levels inherent in the cabling.

The latest offerings are now approaching Gigabit speeds which is fantastic for connecting your Internet enabled TV to your router or Media player on the same AC ring but not between houses.

 

Interestingly I once used 200mb adapters between house and workshop with the network travelling across the 180ft power line buried in my garden, the best throughput I could get was about 5mb which dropped out everytime the outside temperature dropped below zero.

 

Sorry for the long post but when you're wanting to choose a solution and take it out to Portugal you really want it to work first time without hassle.

 

I did high light in bold that it would most likely be a fail - just confirmation and stating that it would be a fail would of sufficed

[m25man]

I did high light in bold that it would most likely be a fail - just confirmation and stating that it would be a fail would of sufficed

 

Agreed- But your suggestion is still worth testing if the OP had some in his luggage already.

Power line is still very much a "suck it and see" solution - I have seen it work across several floors in a German Hotel so hence my comment "unlikely".

[laserblazer]

Agreed- But your suggestion is still worth testing if the OP had some in his luggage already.

Power line is still very much a "suck it and see" solution - I have seen it work across several floors in a German Hotel so hence my comment "unlikely".

 

I did consider trying it but I think you need to be on the same phase and they won't pass through a transformer. There are a dozen or so properties between us.

[maniac]

@maniac's solution will definitely work in theory although there is always the feeder loss element to calculate.

It depends on how good your connectors and cable are and of course the length between AP and antenna.

The losses at 2.4ghz over 10m is significant but more importantly is the noise that can be collected along the way.

Whilst the 9db antenna compensates for the losses it does nothing for the S/NR and whilst you may get a lock and pass packets you can end up with so many re-transmissions that the throughput is unsatisfactory.

 

I have looked at the throughput and stats on the router for re-transmissions and it's surprisingly good, you can happily play on x-box live through it and the lag is very low. This is more by luck thou, as if there was anything else powerful in the vacinity it would affect it I expect. When I ordered it, I was very skeptical about whether it would work with the budget kit, it was more of an experiment than anything, but I was pleased with the results as it turned out much better than expected.