extending wifi 80 metres

Heaven Can Wait · 15 Jun 2009 at 00:46

I have a second home that I'm planning on renting, it's around 80 metres max from my current address, with 2 bungalow in between.
Is it possible to extend a wireless network that far, and what aerial/antennae would be needed?
How much it would cost/what would need to be done?
Thanks.

AtaRo · 15 Jun 2009 at 09:02

Use access points to link the two houses.
Install AP in the highest location of the house and see if they can connect to each other.
If reception is poor use a high gain directional antenna like the Planar high gain WiFi Panel for each of the AP.
It is best to install this outside the house.You can mount it to an existing TV mast if you already got one installed.
Alignment for this type of antenna is critical and must be align properly.

You can also try using powerline adapters.
You might get lucky and you can get a good connection on the other house.

wij · 15 Jun 2009 at 13:00

AtaRo said:
You can also try using powerline adapters.
You might get lucky and you can get a good connection on the other house.

Not it their electrics have been wired at all correctly you wont.

Personally I'd just let whoever rents the property sort it all out themselves and get a BT line or VM whatever is available where you live.

Rroff · 15 Jun 2009 at 15:25

AFAIK the signal from powerline adapters _shouldn't_ be present on the other side of the fusebox/meter - tho I've not checked that.

Decent quality APs high up in the house should do the trick tho signal might not be amazing... directional antennas will help loads.

Wireless can be quite weird tho - if I go one way up the road - the opposite side of the house to the wireless AP I can still get a signal upto 60meters away at ~40Mbit 2-3 bars - but then it just drops off completely from goodish to nothing at all in the space of ~1meter - and if I go down the road the other way - the side of the house the AP is on - I get about 20meters before the signal drops to poor - then the road goes around a (earth) bank and I lose it completely.

miniyazz · 15 Jun 2009 at 20:07

You can make very good directional antennae using empty pringles boxes, I've heard. Might be worth investigating.

I think I remember something about some guy rigging up a couple of Sky satellites or something, then driving up a hill a few miles from his house, setting up his laptop with one of the satellites on the landrover, pointing it ot the one on the house, and using his WiFi.

Webster · 15 Jun 2009 at 23:33

That kinda distance is going to be troublesome for wireless IMO.

I have setup IR links before for similar distances, but this is going back a few years.

No chance you can run a cable in some kinda drainpipe underground?..

wij · 16 Jun 2009 at 00:10

Webzta said:
That kinda distance is going to be troublesome for wireless IMO.

Hardly, I've set up links over several KM without issue.

If you have amicable neighbours who don't mind you digging a trench down the bottom of their garden to put some ducting into for laying a cable then thats not a half bad way around it, but at the end of the day is it really worth the time and effort?

To be quite frank by the time you've spent the money on a decent (and I don't mean a pair of Linksys routers with some 3rd party firmware) external bridges, fitted them and set it all up you may as well just spend £125 on a BT line install and £20 a month on a half decent ADSL package, or just leave it all for whoever rents the property to sort out.

Sure you could buy a cheap wifi bridge but the signal *is* likely to be ropey, and its also shared off your internet connection, so what happens if you start a heavy download and cripple their internet for a couple of hours, or visa versa?

@OP

The kind of kit a professional installer would do this with is going to cost you circa £150+ an end, and that is for some fairly basic off the shelf gear that will do the job to a good standard.

I really wouldn't bugger around trying to make wifi antennas out of pringles pots or an old saucepan - especially not when reasonably good antennas can be bought for under £50 that will do this job easily.

errata · 16 Jun 2009 at 12:50

boring I know but sharing the service to 2 different residential properties would probably breach terms and conditions of supply.

Rroff · 16 Jun 2009 at 15:15

Webzta said:
No chance you can run a cable in some kinda drainpipe underground?..

That could cause problems... one thing you have potential - even tho its rare for problems with lightning strikes...

The other - if the buildings are on seperate electricity supplies/grounding and depending on the terminating equipment you could potentially get current equalisation problems which could fry equipment.

SinaiSound · 16 Jun 2009 at 17:29

I'd just run a length of CAT6 cable...

But I doubt that's possible, hence the reason for asking about wireless

Could rig up something like this?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Wifi-Signal-Strainer-WokFi/

lixxus · 16 Jun 2009 at 18:50

use a 5ghz dual band wireless acesspoint. this will remove interference between the links and ensure stability and extended range

wij · 16 Jun 2009 at 19:24

sandman06 said:
use a 5ghz dual band wireless acesspoint. this will remove interference between the links and ensure stability and extended range

Not if its a cheap bit of crap it wont, though I would also suggest using 5gig gear as there will more than likely be less local congestion.

You still need to get the bridges properly sighted and use appropriate antennas.

rixarena · 17 Jun 2009 at 09:20

Cable is definatly the best solution, when i was in a student house we ran a cable across the road about 40m, then in the morning it had saged and if a van had come past it probably would have snagged it.

you could run STP cable along the phone line and poles then people shouldnt notice and dont really have to ask your neighbours.

if you can only use wireless depending on budget the cheap option is use Cantennas and linksys routers.

Depends how permanent the installion should be.

Regards Sam

wij · 17 Jun 2009 at 10:33

rixarena said:
Cable is definatly the best solution, when i was in a student house we ran a cable across the road about 40m, then in the morning it had saged and if a van had come past it probably would have snagged it.

you could run STP cable along the phone line and poles then people shouldnt notice and dont really have to ask your neighbours.

if you can only use wireless depending on budget the cheap option is use Cantennas and linksys routers.

Depends how permanent the installion should be.

Regards Sam

I'm fairly sure doing that is totally illegal for a number of reasons.

Deaco · 17 Jun 2009 at 10:43

I would give Cantenna's a go and deffo wouldn't suggest attaching infrastructure to anyone elses property (Openreach).

GeForce · 17 Jun 2009 at 10:53

http://www.radio-modules.com/products/antennae/yagi-antennae.shtml

If you can get a couple of routers or access points with SMA adapters for the antennae the 3rd antenna on that page is worth a look.

2.4Ghz Yagi will give a massive gain and if you bought two and pointed them at each other I'm pretty sure you'd get 80m+ out of them.

bledd · 17 Jun 2009 at 11:13

miniyazz said:
You can make very good directional antennae using empty pringles boxes, I've heard. Might be worth investigating.

I think I remember something about some guy rigging up a couple of Sky satellites or something, then driving up a hill a few miles from his house, setting up his laptop with one of the satellites on the landrover, pointing it ot the one on the house, and using his WiFi.

yeah, Aekeron

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17601109&highlight=startername_Aekeron