OT: WIFI booster for shop

I have direct tv in my shop. I keep it on so that I don't think about the ringing in my ears. My wife asked me if I was plotting something because all I seem to have on is the murder channel. She seemed a little concerned. I told her that if I could get netflix out there I would be watching documentaries instead. "OK, let's pursue that", which around my house means funding is approved.
I have a wireless router that is supposed to be good for 300 feet, but I can't pick it up in my steel walled shop, which is about 120' away. I've googled it, but the technical babble means nothing to me. utube suggested cutting a beer can to make a focal antenna.
I just need someone to say, "buy this, mount it to the outside of your shop, and aim it at your router, plug it into the wii."
The kid at RadioShack was useless.
thanks
have fun
i_r_machinist

Just to avoid the mess of the possibility of something not working, I'd just run a CAT6 line out to your shop... but that's me. I don't like wireless too much, as even our chimney seems to block enough of the signal to make using the Raspberry Pi nearly impossible to use for streaming to the TV in the living room.

My son bought a D-Link antenna (ANT24-0700) and mounted it next to the router in our house and it improved the connection to the shop (metal roof, but wood walls) which is ~150' away. This helped a lot, but what he thinks we really need to do is to run a cable out to the shop.

This came up in a thread a year or two ago. There was a long discussion on how to get internet access to work in a remote shop without running cable. A lot of high tech terms were thrown around with no real specifics so hopefully this will simplify your life if you need to do this. My shop is 550 feet from my house and I did not want to run CAT 5 that far. I remember a lot of suggestions but nothing conclusive on what would work and what would not. I just want to say here what I did and that it worked great. I bought a Hawking HA12W directional antenna that is about a foot high and four inches wide and sticks to the inside of my window in the house with provided suction cups. It plugs directly into my Verizon modem. No power supply or anything. You just unscrew the little rubber duck antenna that comes with the modem and plug in the Hawking antenna. I have it pointed in the general direction of my shop which is completely hidden by trees by the way. On the other end I placed a Netgear WN2000RPT range extender in a window of the shop. The range extender is about 8" tall and 1.5" thick. The only connection on the shop end is the plug in power supply that came with. The range extender just picks up the very weak signal from the antenna in my house ( I got absolutely no connection without doing this) and re-transmits a strong signal in the shop. I had the whole thing up and going in 30 minutes. Total cost was about $100 which is probably less then the CAT 5 cable alone and one heck of a lot easier. I got both items at Best Buy which is probably one of the more expensive places to shop but not knowing if it would really work or not I wanted the take back policy within 15 days that they offer. It works great and I highly recommend this if you need WI-FI in your remote shop, outhouse or whatever.

D-Link Wi-Fi Booster Caution

I bought a D-Link wifi booster D-Link | Wireless N300 Range Extender as I wanted to stream Netflix etc on my TV using Chromecast and my TV is far enough away from my router that signal strength was low. So, the D-link seemed to be the answer. It did indeed increase signal strength nicely but the dirty little secret is that it cut transmission speed in half. Add to that the fact that customer service was unusually difficult to access by phone and once I finally got through to a person, the English they spoke was nearly impossible to understand. When I was able to get her to understand my question about the reduced throughput, she said that was "normal" and to be expected with this device. I suspect other similar devices would have the same problem.

I sent it back. Moving my router was a bit more work but solved the problem.

I would surely run a cable in the circumstance described by the OP. You cold hook a router to that cable in the shop, but the cable would be the way to get the signal to the shop for me.

Denis

BINGO!
Part numbers and everything!
Thanks Crossthread!
i_r_

Crossthread may have solved your problem, in case others are trying to cover more area, I saw this ad recently. Ayrstone is selling a AyrMesh Hub2n with a 7 1/2 mile Wifi siganl range! Connect all you ranch devices. With that range you would need a good pass word or everyone and their dog would be borrowing your bandwidth.

You'll need a minimum of 33ft antenna height to get that range without problems.

PS, this is my day job

You are joking right Mark? My system is working great and is only 6 feet off the ground. The antenna on the house end is stuck to a window and the receiving end is sitting on a window sill. I can watch streaming video with no problem so apparantly there is no lack of bandwidth to speak of as well.

There are dirt cheap amps 1- 8 watts and beam antennas on ebay all the time. Just watch out for high ERP at skull level.

crossthread said:

You are joking right Mark? My system is working great and is only 6 feet off the ground. The antenna on the house end is stuck to a window and the receiving end is sitting on a window sill. I can watch streaming video with no problem so apparantly there is no lack of bandwidth to speak of as well.

Click to expand...

7.5 miles? ....

I wasn't talking about the workshop extension, but about FredC's ranch extension.

I'm not going to be microwaving my head every time I walk in front of this, am I? I get enough of that crap at work!
i_r_

thermite said:

...out the sunroof, or draped across the rear-view-mirror, and I can operate from inside the vehicle...

Click to expand...

Doing some wardriving, are we?

I clipped an article out of a farm magazine and thought the Ayrstone unit would cover 7 1/2 miles by it self. Mark is probably right about the antenna for that range. I finally went to the website and the AyrMesh Hub2n | Ayrstone unit will only do 1/2 mile by itself. To do 7 1/2 miles would take multiple units. I had envisioned a network of game cameras, security cameras, gate controllers and center pivots all interconnected with one unit, when I clipped the atricle. Another day before that is possible.

i_r_machinist said:

I have direct tv in my shop. I keep it on so that I don't think about the ringing in my ears. My wife asked me if I was plotting something because all I seem to have on is the murder channel. She seemed a little concerned. I told her that if I could get netflix out there I would be watching documentaries instead. "OK, let's pursue that", which around my house means funding is approved.

Click to expand...

So, I didn't hear you deny her question, you can tell us, WERE you plotting something?

When I bought this place 7 years ago I put in 100 mm ducting underground between all the buildings, and pulled through 5 CAT5E cables and three two pair telephone cables. Also left a heavyish pull through rope in as well. So that's seven buildings now linked and I can have Internet and / or telephones wherever I want.

Porschefix said:

So, I didn't hear you deny her question, you can tell us, WERE you plotting something?

Click to expand...

Psychopaths just change the topic and keep going as if nothing is wrong.

But so do politicians, "talking heads", and domestic partners, so perhaps he isn't plotting

Porschefix said:

So, I didn't hear you deny her question, you can tell us, WERE you plotting something?

Click to expand...

I sure hope I wasn't, because all those people got caught!
i_r_

If your home and shop are on the same "grid", these work well for extending a network somewhere difficult.

Amazon.com: NETGEAR Powerline 200Mbps Nano Adapter - Starter Kit (XAVB2101): Computers & Accessories

Tom

If instead of running a CAT cable you ran a cheap $30 coax cable. New routers with MOCA will let use a cheap coax cable. I suppose they were not intended for new installations, but would work just the same.