Need help with wireless in home

sixer9682

sixer9682

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We have Uverse 18mps in the house now though the wireless router is located downstairs in my office. My wife works from home and does video conferencing and needs a strong signal that is secure for her work. We've tried a bridge and she gets a weak signal upstairs. There is no line of sight in the house so I thought I'd try a repeater. Any suggestions on how to get a good signal upstairs at the other end of the house? We've got about 2800 sq ft in the house and so far access points, bridges, and antennae have not done the job.
 
I struggled the same way when I moved into the one room of my house that seems like a faraday cage. In the end I ran a cable down the siding after tapping the base of a window.

But onto your problem. Remember if your on N that 2.4 Ghz penetrates better than 5Ghz despite local interference. Directional high gains will probably serve you a little better than a unidirectional. But remember if its only on one router the effect isnt great in both directions. But keeping the main router effective for the rest of the house also means not messing too much with its antenna's.

Assuming you have a router that lets you configure bridge and repeater? I run custom firmware so its been a blessing not to have to buy more hardware. My main solution was to move the modem and router to the top of the house in the hallway and put a repeater bridge for everything on the bottom floor. Remember with a repeater your wireless latency will be about double, this should be okay for conferencing but not for gaming. So your gaming desktop is probably centered around this entire network schematic.

Most routers and wireless adapter use 10% or even less off the maximum power allowed. Check out Ubiquity's 1000mW solutions - http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Wifistation-Adapter-802-11g-1000mW/dp/B004FVQ9HI They mostly carry commercial products but they did/do have home products. I cant really find them on their website since they did the redesign.

I know this info probably isnt of much help. But ive been through it figured id share some observations.
 
100ft ? out the basement wall, up the outside wall, back into a window or room wall, done?
 
Nah, it's at opposite ends of the house, would be going from the downstairs office, to the left, up the stairs and to the left again into her office. I didn't want to run the wires up and down the stairs, pull up the carpet upstairs in the hallway, etc. I'll give Rain's idea a try and see if that works. I ordered next day delivery from Amazon for $4.00 so what the hell.
 
RainMotorsports said:
I struggled the same way when I moved into the one room of my house that seems like a faraday cage. In the end I ran a cable down the siding after tapping the base of a window.

But onto your problem. Remember if your on N that 2.4 Ghz penetrates better than 5Ghz despite local interference. Directional high gains will probably serve you a little better than a unidirectional. But remember if its only on one router the effect isnt great in both directions. But keeping the main router effective for the rest of the house also means not messing too much with its antenna's.

Assuming you have a router that lets you configure bridge and repeater? I run custom firmware so its been a blessing not to have to buy more hardware. My main solution was to move the modem and router to the top of the house in the hallway and put a repeater bridge for everything on the bottom floor. Remember with a repeater your wireless latency will be about double, this should be okay for conferencing but not for gaming. So your gaming desktop is probably centered around this entire network schematic.

Most routers and wireless adapter use 10% or even less off the maximum power allowed. Check out Ubiquity's 1000mW solutions - Amazon.com: Ubiquiti Wifistation USB Adapter 802.11g/n up to 1000mW: Electronics They mostly carry commercial products but they did/do have home products. I cant really find them on their website since they did the redesign.

I know this info probably isnt of much help. But ive been through it figured id share some observations.
Click to expand...

thank god you back, we are all stupid when it comes to these things.
 
I had some issues when I had my router near on the side of the house with the electrical box, moved it away from there and havent had to many issues with signal strength.
 
Supra said:
thank god you back, we are all stupid when it comes to these things.
Click to expand...

I am trying pretty hard to stay away lmao. Was writing up my first day experiences with Android and the Galaxy SII when i clicked on over to see Sixer in distress.

sixer9682 said:
Nah, it's at opposite ends of the house, would be going from the downstairs office, to the left, up the stairs and to the left again into her office. I didn't want to run the wires up and down the stairs, pull up the carpet upstairs in the hallway, etc. I'll give Rain's idea a try and see if that works. I ordered next day delivery from Amazon for $4.00 so what the hell.
Click to expand...

I hope you didnt leap too fast lol. That was what my next step would have been had i not ran the cat 6.

Remember this is a one ended solution. It transmits with 5 to 20 times the power of anything you probably had before but thats just transmission. Id expect a small improvement in receiving as well but without pairing it with a router of similar capability to transmit your looking at mostly a one way improvement in communication. If she is using a laptop though this should be a significant improvement over the 50mW cards and antenna's you usually find. The USB interface is fine for your internet speeds but remember it wont come close to N's network capabilities in throughput.
 
I know your not trying to run a line Six, but does the house have a basement or crawl space? If so down through the floor in the office and over and up to wherever it needs to be. I played around with plenty of wireless solution to some degrees of success, until I finally said fuck it and took the time to run a line. Probably the same cost in the long run when you add all the conduit and everything else for an outside line. Plus depending on where it ends up you may not like the look to the house with a line on the outside, but you can't argue with the performance.
 
Sadly, no basement. It was about 30k more for a house with a basement, so it's a concrete slab foundation. Chuck had a basement and got a great signal here from the bedroom office on the second floor to the basement....me I'm not so lucky. Balls had mentioned router use, and Chuck also suggested a dual band router which would be good to isolate bandwidth for me and her. So, I'll give that a try, cancelled the repeater order and I'll give this a go tomorrow when it arrives.
 
Six just remember with the dual band what i said about 2.4 Ghz. Try it both ways but if you can, put all your stuff on 5Ghz and hers on 2.4. Higher frequencies do not penetrate material as well as lower ones. If interference is more of an issue than penetration then maybe the 5Ghz will work out better for her but its usually doubtful in house situation.
 
Rain,

Thanks and that's the exact thing Chuck said as well. Hers goes on 2.4ghz and I'll keep mine on the 5ghz. Interference doesn't seem to be the problem, just frequency penetration. Hopefully this dual band router will take care of that. I'll keep you guys updated and thanks for all the advice and help.
 
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