Repeater

[Chuck Fabman]

You guys have help me before, so here i am again. Have WiFi in house need to expand it to the Garage. Need wireless repeater that works. Try one but it would not even start to work. It sucked big time.
Like the one that plugs into outlet in the garage. Don't know if they work.
Has anyone done this?
Have WOW provider need to expand it.
Thanks in advance
Chuck

 

[TJay]

My Netgear one works great, have never had an issue with it. Took some time to get it setup and functioning but going on 2-3 months without an issue now.

Had it in my garage but moved it inside my house instead so it could pick up the current wifi signal better and retransmit it from that point which works great in the garage.

This is the one I have,

Netgear WN2000RPT
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear...itch/1243081.p?id=1218240386270&skuId=1243081

 

[wdrumheller]

Chuck,

I have done this, many times, and it's a pain in the ****. I have a place 1/2 mile from here, and I have two directional antennas facing each way, with two routers designated as the "sending unit" and the "repeater unit" and it was expensive, and used every single bit of computer IP address knowledge I could muster, and took me many many hours to set up, and it is "worth it" because now 500 bucks later and lots of time later, I have high speed wireless at a remote location.

Now, hear this:

The BEST way to do it, if you have a shop that is less than 300 feet away from your house, is to bury an ethernet cable Cat 5E that is for direct burial, and bury it under the sod, and run it out there, and then put a wireless router out there that does NOT assign IP addresses. (In other words it should not be set up as a "DHCP" server, but instead a "client").

Otherwise, if you want to go down the road of an honest-to-goodness wireless bridge repeater setup, I recommend "www.radiolabs.com" and you can email them and get started with the directional antenna setup.

If there is ANY way to run a line, beneath the sod, of standard-issue underground ready Cat5E cable, go that direction. That's what I ended up doing for my building that is 160 feet from the house. The direct wired connection is worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007P5S172/?tag=atomicindus08-20

You can get longer cable.

Also, once I got it there, I hooked it up to a splitter, also known as a "switch" which then lets me hook up many more things to the system "wired".

 

[wdrumheller]

My Netgear one works great, have never had an issue with it. Took some time to get it setup and functioning but going on 2-3 months without an issue now.

Had it in my garage but moved it inside my house instead so it could pick up the current wifi signal better and retransmit it from that point which works great in the garage.

This is the one I have,

Netgear WN2000RPT
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear...itch/1243081.p?id=1218240386270&skuId=1243081

I love this idea if the garage is close to the house.

I wonder if the WOW provider he has, allows him to connect an ethernet cable to his existing wireless broadcast router for a wired connection.

 

[AHotRod]

Chuck,
How far is your garage from the house?

 

[jkwilson]

If they are on the same power transformer for service, use a powerline access point. You run a cable to your router and then you have wireless wherever you plug the access point into AC power. Like this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0046SQ8VW/?tag=atomicindus08-20 Wireless is always slower than wired though.

 

[CC1221]

I did as jkwilson suggests - I installed a Cisco Homeplug AV kit last week and am surprisingly pleased with it's performance. My incoming electrical service is split at the meter and feeds both the house and garage. Garage is roughly 230' from the house and I've been able to get a consistent internet signal using them. I also added a small wireless access point (little cheapy that I had laying around) so I could then get wifi. It's not "fast" but then again, neither is my dsl, but it works well enough to stream Pandora, and do a little surfing if needed.

 

[Killer95Stang]

My Netgear one works great, have never had an issue with it. Took some time to get it setup and functioning but going on 2-3 months without an issue now.

Had it in my garage but moved it inside my house instead so it could pick up the current wifi signal better and retransmit it from that point which works great in the garage.

This is the one I have,

Netgear WN2000RPT
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear...itch/1243081.p?id=1218240386270&skuId=1243081

Wish I had your luck... I bought that same wifi bridge to use with a FIOS router and can't get it to work. Not sure if it has something to do with my FIOS router, but maybe one day I'll have wifi by the pool.

 

[appzman]

I spent months trying to reliably extend the wireless network between two buildings on our property. It's about 150ft line of sight. I tried repeaters, but found that even if I could get them to work, reliability would drop significantly. I tried a variety of products, including off the shelf repeaters, as well as hacking a router with DD-WRT to boost signal strength, but couldn't could up with a wireless based solution I was happy with.

I ended up hiring a guy to spend two days digging a trench between the two buildings. The trench needed to follow the contours of the property, so ended up being about 200ft. The guy I hired to dig the trench went down about 18 inches, then we put 1/2" PVC conduit in the trench and fished cat6 through. I put an access point in the second building.

It was about $200 in labor for the guy to dig the trench, $100 in PVC conduit, $20 in conduit joiners and elbows, and $80 for the cat6.

Total cost (including the labor to dig the trench) was about $400, about the same as the extenders I was trying, but it worked out to be a lot more reliable and I'm very happy with this solution.

I'd really recommend going ethernet if you can.

 

[jomobco]

Buy a Sonos and use it as a wireless bridge plus get tunes to the shop.

 

[MN4x4]

I also recommend the wired route if you can make it work.

My shop is around 100 feet from my house at the closest point. I ran 2" PVC conduit between the buildings then pulled in 2x direct burial Cat 6 wire, and 2x direct burial Co-ax wire for satellite and TV. Couldn't be happier!

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

Running ethernet and buying a cheap router will be a lot easier and cheaper in the long run. You can pick up a router from Goodwill for under $10.

 

[TJay]

Wish I had your luck... I bought that same wifi bridge to use with a FIOS router and can't get it to work. Not sure if it has something to do with my FIOS router, but maybe one day I'll have wifi by the pool.

The Netgear directions didn't works for me. I had to hardwire the extender to my current router and then plug my laptop into that to complete the setup.

I had to enter the SSID and Passphrase manually into it as well as assign a static IP to the extender.

It def wasn't a quick process getting it figured out

 

[Chuck Fabman]

Chuck,
How far is your garage from the house?

From my WOW Gateway to the garage 60/80 feet. Can get a weak sigal
outside my door.

 

[Jaguar Fan]

You guys have help me before, so here i am again. Have WiFi in house need to expand it to the Garage. Need wireless repeater that works. Try one but it would not even start to work. It sucked big time.
Like the one that plugs into outlet in the garage. Don't know if they work.
Has anyone done this?
Have WOW provider need to expand it.
Thanks in advance
Chuck

I suggest a specific high end brand: Ubiquiti Networks. http://www.ubnt.com/.

Uniquiti products are specialized for situations such as yours. They are not just any old wifi product and go beyond the WiFi spec for distance.

Here is one reseller who sells them; there are many others of course.

http://www.flyteccomputers.com/



"A woman drove me to drink, and I never had the decency to thank her." -- W.C. Fields

 

[Cobra6]

Chuck,

I have done this, many times, and it's a pain in the ****. I have a place 1/2 mile from here, and I have two directional antennas facing each way, with two routers designated as the "sending unit" and the "repeater unit" and it was expensive, and used every single bit of computer IP address knowledge I could muster, and took me many many hours to set up, and it is "worth it" because now 500 bucks later and lots of time later, I have high speed wireless at a remote location.

Now, hear this:

The BEST way to do it, if you have a shop that is less than 300 feet away from your house, is to bury an ethernet cable Cat 5E that is for direct burial, and bury it under the sod, and run it out there, and then put a wireless router out there that does NOT assign IP addresses. (In other words it should not be set up as a "DHCP" server, but instead a "client").

Otherwise, if you want to go down the road of an honest-to-goodness wireless bridge repeater setup, I recommend "www.radiolabs.com" and you can email them and get started with the directional antenna setup.

If there is ANY way to run a line, beneath the sod, of standard-issue underground ready Cat5E cable, go that direction. That's what I ended up doing for my building that is 160 feet from the house. The direct wired connection is worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007P5S172/?tag=atomicindus08-20

You can get longer cable.

Also, once I got it there, I hooked it up to a splitter, also known as a "switch" which then lets me hook up many more things to the system "wired".

You are right - it is a pain in the **** - and those wireless extenders are always up and down - the only thing is I would go ahead and use Direct Burial Cat 6 cable - You can get 300 feet for under $75 or so on eBay.

 

[Cryptic1911]

^ yep, go wired if at all possible

 

[eastbaysubaru]

I would strongly suggest against the WiFi repeater. I've installed literally hundreds of wireless networks and probably twice as many wired networks and one of the biggest PITAs is trying to get wireless repeaters to work properly.

If running a Cat5 cable is an option I would highly suggest that route.

If that isn't an option, I would look at the powerline adapters. They have worked very well and reliability is second only to an actual Cat5 connection.

-Brian