WiFi between houses - AP to laptop

Belix

Belix

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2007
Messages
365
Hi folks
My father in law bought himself a laptop. Trouble is that although the laptop can see the Netgear 834 router, I'm guessing the laptop reply signal is not reaching the router.

Since I cannot change the antennae on the laptop as far as I know, I'd like to know what options I have.
I think the laptop is about 50m, across the lawn in another house.
Would a stronger antennae for the router pick up the weak signal, or do I have to concentrate on the laptop only?

Cheers!
 
B

bleh69

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2009
Messages
539
1. login to your rooter and check if WLAN signal power is max.
2. move your rooter for a better LOS (line of sight) with laptop

- Theres nothing you can do for the laptop besides getting an external WiFi dongle/thingy (not a solution)
- You can buy a standalone AP, and put it in repeater mode. That way it will ferry traffic between router and laptop.
- You can get some antenna wiring (pigtails, etc) and extend your rooters antennae for better reception.

my 2c worth.
 
Defiler

Defiler

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Joined
Nov 13, 2005
Messages
736
Another thing which you can try, if you will not be transferring large file across the wireless is to change the wireless standard on the router from 802.11g (54mb-108mb) to 802.11b (11mb) in your wireless settings. That has worked a couple of times for me when the signal is just not quite good enough. Otherwise you could always purchase a PCMCIA / USB wifi card which supports a external antenna and add one to that (most likely will come with a basic one).
 
Belix

Belix

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Joined
Mar 3, 2007
Messages
365
Thanks guys
bleh69 said:
1. login to your rooter and check if WLAN signal power is max.
2. move your rooter for a better LOS (line of sight) with laptop

- Theres nothing you can do for the laptop besides getting an external WiFi dongle/thingy (not a solution)
- You can buy a standalone AP, and put it in repeater mode. That way it will ferry traffic between router and laptop.
- You can get some antenna wiring (pigtails, etc) and extend your rooters antennae for better reception.
Click to expand...

what would pigtails be?
 
T

ting

Active Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2008
Messages
49
This is a bit of a late reply - Belix did you sort your problem out? Did you get an antenna in the end; if you didn't have a look at this product page http://www.poyntingdirect.co.za/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=WLAN-A0040

You'll basically mount the antenna outside and attach it to the ADSL router (the antenna comes with 20m CAT 5 cable) Point the antenna in the direction of where the laptop is...
 
M

murray654

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2005
Messages
643
ting said:
This is a bit of a late reply - Belix did you sort your problem out? Did you get an antenna in the end; if you didn't have a look at this product page http://www.poyntingdirect.co.za/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=WLAN-A0040

You'll basically mount the antenna outside and attach it to the ADSL router (the antenna comes with 20m CAT 5 cable) Point the antenna in the direction of where the laptop is...
Click to expand...

Dude thats a CPE not an antenae. There is a difference - A CPE contains a router, which you would have to configure to repeater mode before it would work. It would connect to a free LAN port on the ADSL router. Its tricky to set up.
 
T

ting

Active Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2008
Messages
49
Yes you are quite right it is Customer Premises Equipment. But then again an ADSL modem can also be referred to as CPE. Nevertheless what I tried to say came out wrong.
That device has a web interface and a good manual. We logged onto it and ticked on bridge mode added security and changed the SSID to outside WiFi “can be almost anything” and it works beautifully through 2 walls an half a tree. Our laptops are getting DHCP addresses from the Router.
 
Rocket-Boy

Rocket-Boy

Honorary Master
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
10,199
I would suggest trying to move the router closer to where the laptop will be. i.e the closest window to the 2nd house. You can get antennas to boost signal that work fairly well but without LOS and possible interference between the points they might not solve your problem.
 
A

ajax

Executive Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2003
Messages
5,605
Do a site survey and check if there are other AP's on the same channel. It could cause interference preventing a stable connection. Then change the channel to an open one.

Move the router to a better location as stated earlier in the thread. If you can't then just moving it around a metre or two could already make a difference - multipath can be a bit of black magic sometimes.

Otherwise then buy an antenna and point it to the laptop's location. There should still be enough signal around the antenna for local devices to still connect to the router.
 
U

UnUnOctium

Expert Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
3,127
Defiler said:
Another thing which you can try, if you will not be transferring large file across the wireless is to change the wireless standard on the router from 802.11g (54mb-108mb) to 802.11b (11mb) in your wireless settings. That has worked a couple of times for me when the signal is just not quite good enough. Otherwise you could always purchase a PCMCIA / USB wifi card which supports a external antenna and add one to that (most likely will come with a basic one).
Click to expand...

Makes no difference unless the devices don't support ACM (which they should according to 802.11g).

Belix said:
Hi folks
My father in law bought himself a laptop. Trouble is that although the laptop can see the Netgear 834 router, I'm guessing the laptop reply signal is not reaching the router.

Since I cannot change the antennae on the laptop as far as I know, I'd like to know what options I have.
I think the laptop is about 50m, across the lawn in another house.
Would a stronger antennae for the router pick up the weak signal, or do I have to concentrate on the laptop only?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

It's the laptop not having enough transmit power. Most likely the antenna on it (they are quite limited since they have to hide it somewhere). What I would recommend is first download inSSIDer and run it on the lappy. This will show you the exact RSSI for the signal at the laptop (unless your drivers suck...) If that is pretty low -90 dBm or worse then you can be pretty much sure that the laptop's Tx signal at the router side has a horribly weak SNR. Only way to fix this is get some auxilliary antenna for your lappy and plug it into the WiFi card or try and get a line-of-sight going between the laptop and the router.
 
acidrain

acidrain

Executive Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
Messages
5,975
if it was me i'd rather run lan cable along a boundary wall, burying it as i go along. Cable will cost half the price of a cpe and be twice as fast.

Unless there's a huge need for him to be mobile with it, then i'd attach a cheapy wireless switch to the end of the cable.
 
B

bdt

Executive Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
7,001
A picture paints a thousand words so...:

ubiquiti-wifistation.jpg

Info:
Introducing WifiStation Ext*, a powerful and versatile tool that is capable of connecting to WiFi networks 100+ meters away at 150+ Mbps speeds. Revolutionary performance in a compact and efficient design. Built-in Hi-Gain MIMO Antenna for long-range connectivity.

Simply plug WifiStation Ext into the USB port of your computer (USB cable included).

Specifications
  • USB Cable: 4m
  • Max Power Consumption: 4.0 Watts
  • Operating Temperature: 20C to 75C
  • Frequency Range: 2.42.5 GHz
  • Interface WifiStation Ext: USB 2.0, MicroB Connector
  • Gain: 6dBi
  • Polarization: (External RPSMA port) omni
  • Crosspol Isolation: 20dB minimum
  • Max VSWR: 1.4:1
Click to expand...
* the one on the right (with the antenna (for the left/right impaired)) :p Scoop has them, at a whole R250 - there's very little you can do before spending more than that on time/effort/sweat..
 
B

bdt

Executive Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
7,001
In either case you set it up directly on a PC and then jack it into the Netgear to get down the business of reaching out and touching the other side.
 
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