wifi range extender

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karen
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wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

Does anyone here know about wifi range extenders? I want my wifi to extend out into my yard 100 yards or more and am wondering about extenders. Good or bad?
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

They work quite well and are completely transparent. My friends are using one to bridge fifty yards.

You don't have electricity in the bee yard, though, I would imagine?

Do you need it to work all the time, say for a webcam, or just when you are there?
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karen
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Re: wifi range extender

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I have electric outlets in the barn. I do not need it all the time. As soon as I walk out the back door I have no wifi. I have very little data with my cell phone plan so getting the signal to where I work a lot would cut back on my data use.

The kitchen is in the back of the house and the wireless route is two rooms away in the front, I barely have a signal in the kitchen. If I can put the extender in the kitchen it may reach the barn too.
This is the one I have looked at but know nothing about them.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref ... KV8N2G61EM
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Those work well, but I believe that you have to plug into it with an eithernet cable so it would not be suitable for a cell phone. You need a wireless extender.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

I Googled "Best wi-fi extender' and got some good hits.

Is your house stucco, by any chance? Stucco wire shields wi-fi. Wi-fi routers also have settings for power output and channel selection to avoid interference. The best new ones have much better range and automatically find a free channel.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

No stucco it is wooden clapboards.

Yes I want to extend the wifi range so I can use wifi in the backyard.
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Re: wifi range extender

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I have electric outlets in the barn.
How close is the barn to where you want coverage?
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Re: wifi range extender

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The barn is about 25 to 35 yards away from the house.
Last edited by karen on May 2nd, 2015, 3:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: wifi range extender

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And how far from the house?
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Charlie
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Charlie »

Karen,
Is your wireless sitting behind your computer trapping the signal? If you could post the make and model of your router that may be of some help. I would think 100 yards in a bee yard should be a no-brainer even with a couple walls and the way.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

The wireless is up on a piece of furniture about 4 feet off the floor. The router is Netgear WNR 2000.

It is in the front of the house and I hardly get wireless it in certain places in the kitchen which is several walls away at the back of the house. It is an old house with lath and plaster walls. I would like to have wireless out in the yard and the barn where I work a lot building equipment etc. So I want a repeater or extender.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

What would probably help is an aerial shot of your place. A screenshot from Google Earth would do. Just upload it as an attachment and we should be able to see it.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

wifi_pic.jpg

Here is a photo including where the router is and I marked where I want to have wifi. There is no scale but it is around 20 - 30 yards.
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Charlie
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Charlie »

Karen, sorry for the delay work sometimes gets in the way. Thank you for posting the picture and the model number, it helps with the understanding a lot.

I did look up the model number and there are some concerns in the various forms and that this wireless device doesn't perform as good as the old versions of the G standard. Some modems you can log into and set the power levels and you may be at a low level and not the highest level. Assuming you are at the highest level I have would be concerned because you say you hardly have any signal at your back door. The only two reasons that I can think of are:
1- defective modem
2- you have metal in the walls of some kind or very thick solid wood walls blocking the signal.

Having said thatAs a Wi-Fi extender can only extend the signal that it receives so if you have a very weak signal in your kitchen then you may not do so well in the barn.

However the link you sent yesterday http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref ... KV8N2G61EM is a power line extender. The way power line extenders work you would plug one into the wall near your computer and plug in ethernet cable into it and your network, then you would take another power line extender and plug it into your barn the ethernet cable from the power line extender into an access point. Having a good access point in the barn will probably give you excellent coverage all over your yard. Note an access point is different than a wireless router and power line extenders always start off as a pair and you can add more to them later. as per http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/deta ... 10KIT.html at the bottom of the page.

I would guess that the power line extenders and then access point would give you the best coverage and would also be the most reliable. This of course assumes that your barn and a house are powered from the same electrical panel.

Hope this helps
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Then again, one can run UTP Ethernet cable up to 300 feet.
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karen
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

I looked and my router can not be changed from low to high so may be the answer is a new router. This one is old.

The walls in the house are thick, it was built in 1810 so a lot of wood in the walls.

Thank you, if you have any recommendations on a router I will listen.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

I assume that you have a cable modem that gets the Internet, then hooks up to your router?

If so, the cable connecting the two can be as long as you like and you can move the wireless modem to wherever you like up to 300 feet away. You have to find a cable, though. Computer shops can make them up from bulk wire.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Charlie »

Just about any router these days that complies with the "N" standard will be good enough. But because of the age and design of the house the new router may not do any better than the old router. You may end up using the network extenders anyway. I would maybe check how good the signal do you have on the outside your house where the wireless device is. I realize this is a direction that you do not wish to go with but it would tell us how much signal you are getting through the wall of your house and it would also give you a good approximate distance of how far you can go if you used a long ethernet cable as Allen suggests and move the router to your kitchen. If you get 50 feet outside the window then you know your router is not going to work very well whether you move it to the kitchen are not. As a rule of thumb I never spend $.10 unless I know I'm getting value for it. And I understand that you want some very basic, so I would go cheap.

Sorry,.... These things are never as clean as you would like.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Here is a useful free software tool that lets you walk around with your laptop and assess coverage and detect interference from nearby routers:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/otaa492monlt0 ... 6.exe?dl=0

This is an older, free version that will work fine for the once or twice you will need it. The newer versions are not as good IMO and the latest version costs $20.
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Re: wifi range extender

Unread post by karen »

Thank you all the responded to my wifi extender question. I ended up getting a Netgear N300 WiFi Range Extender and it gives me wifi ell over 200 yards from my house. It gives coverage way beyond where I wanted, I have not tested it's limits yet because that would mean a hike into the woods and the ticks are very bad this year. May be wifi is bad for ticks? That would be nice.
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