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Long-Range Wireless Router ? For Networking Guys

Jonecy

Jonecy

Well-Known Member
Dec 5, 2006
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3.5 Hours From Trice
My neighbor put an office in his shop behind his house. He wants to see if he can get wireless internet from the house out to the shop, but the shop is a morton building covered in tin.

I've tested the range on my older Linksys Wireless-G router from my house (which is slightly farther to the shop than his house) and it barely picks up the signal.

Does anyone have any suggestions on more powerful, long-range wireless adapters that he could use? He'd prefer to go this route instead of having to hardwire a LAN connection to the office or mount an all-weather wifi receiver to the outside of his shop and hard-wire from there.

Any help is much appreciated - thanks.
 
Jonecy said:
My neighbor put an office in his shop behind his house. He wants to see if he can get wireless internet from the house out to the shop, but the shop is a morton building covered in tin.

I've tested the range on my older Linksys Wireless-G router from my house (which is slightly farther to the shop than his house) and it barely picks up the signal.

Does anyone have any suggestions on more powerful, long-range wireless adapters that he could use? He'd prefer to go this route instead of having to hardwire a LAN connection to the office or mount an all-weather wifi receiver to the outside of his shop and hard-wire from there.

Any help is much appreciated - thanks.
Click to expand...


Look for a wireless N 300. Should have much better range than a wireless G. Pretty sure
 
Honestly your best bet would be to get a signal amplifier. Its probably more hassle than he wants, but extenders can be spotty.
 
bos said:
Honestly your best bet would be to get a signal amplifier. Its probably more hassle than he wants, but extenders can be spotty.
Click to expand...

Thanks - any additional info. on what to look for when selecting one? What are good brands that won't require much monitoring (he's not very good with computers and I don't want to get called over there all the time)?
 
Pringles can method to set up a Point to Point connection to an extender. If you can find some cheap routers that will let you put dd-wrt on them this should be fairly simple. Then just connect a router that you'll want to use for the wireless to the Point to Point router. Or buy some external yagi antennas that are directional. How far are we talking?

EDIT: Sorry this would be what I would do. Has some time invested and not as much cost but may not be for everyone.

The "easiest" would be to trench a cable to the shed. This would probably be the most stable. May not be the cheapest though.

Actually another thing I just thought of is POE or Power over ethernet. But that will only work if the power goes to the same breaker for the house and shed...so I'm guessing that's a no. I have one of these and pretty handy. You just plug one in to a wall outlet and plug in an ethernet cable from the router... Then plug the other one in at an outlet that is handy and have an ethernet port ready for you. But like I said the power would need to be through the same breaker to work.
 
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Honestly, repeaters/extenders on small-/mid-range routers aren't that great.

Your best bet would be to find a Wireless N router (one that uses 802.11n) to get the best range and speed. N is one of the newer developments in wireless transmission protocols that improves on speed and range over 802.11g.

If you're getting a weak signal now with g, you'll get an okay to good signal with n.

It does require a wireless adapter in the computers that are compatible with wireless n, but any computer that came out in the last 3 to 4 years or so should be compatible already.

Belkin and Netgear are both good brands to look for.
 
Get a router that uses a external antenna and just get a more powerful antenna you can do the same with a desktop computer. Drill a hole in the building run a wire and put the antenna outside.
 
Buy a mobile Mi-Fi for $50/month that u can take anywhere. If he wants to leave it in the shop fine, take it in the house fine, take it in his car fine. I have 2 of them from Verizon, love 'em.

Should work in a metal building if they work cruising down the road.
 
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