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Need help extending network

The info:

Two buildings - a two-story house and a 3-room shop, approximately 150 ft apart. We need internet in the shop. There is cable modem and a Belkin wireless router in the house (not sure of model or firmware, but can get it tonight if needed) The cable modem and Belkin are on the opposite side of the house from the shop, about 4 rooms and 4-5 walls deep At this time laptops will not pick up the Belkin's signal in the shop.

I would like to create a wireless bridge. There are two additional wireless routers available to us, a Buffalo and Linksys WRT54GL, both running DD-WRT v24 beta, with the Repeater mode option. The Belkin supports "bridging" mode, where it will allow other APs to connect to it. Not sure if this includes something like the Buffalo in repeater mode.

I was considering putting the Buffalo near a window facing the shop on the second floor of the house, as a repeater off the Belkin, then using the Linksys in the shop, bridged back to the repeater.

With the info I've provided does that sound like a viable option? Secondly, if so, could someone help with the network settings involved? I'd like to achieve a "client bridge" arrangement, where the Linksys in the shop is a wireless client on the same subnet.

I've done this several times with WAP54Gs bridged (not including the Bufalo repeater wildcard), but not with disparate routers.

Please let me know what other info I need to provide.

thank you,

jm

Reply to
JM
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Are they on the same electrical service (same meter, not breaker)? if so, instead of wireless you may want to consider a powerline ethernet bridge, under $100, you can put a wap/router in the shop and have both wired and wireless..

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up to 85 Mbps (faster than plain old wireless)

Reply to
Peter Pan

That is a great suggestion, but, unfortunately the shop building is on a different meter owned by the same person.

jm

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Reply to
JM

About where are you located at? (just general is fine), I started with wireless to my shop, but was in northern Idaho, and during the winter, when it snowed (about 38" on the ground), and the steep metal snow roofs, piled snow even higher by the outsides of the buildings and blocked the fresnel zone (wireless bridge beam spreads out and you need a certain amount of clearance, things like snow and growing vegetation can really screw wireless up)... any chance that you can bury a low voltage direct burial utility cable? (not that much, 10 pair was about $100, and you can add phone/intercom/etc).. Or maybe even coax like for TV? If no metal roof, how about directional to directional on the roof or outside walls? Actually wireless was the first thing I tried, then a utility cable, and finally bit the bullet and ran a direct burial power cable (wanted to play/learn arc welding and had to run extra power).. I'd just hate to suggest the wireless bridge unless I was pretty sure that nothing would bite you in the butt, so I'm trying to give you alternatives. Obviously my plan a was wireless, trying to save you from being unhappy with it and going to plan b or c or d etc.....

Actually, the powerline network/same meter isn't exactly correct, it needs to be on the same leg off a transformer, but for 99% of the people, they hopefully understand that one meter just means you can have multiple circuits/circuit breakers inside the house. Hard to say how things are in your area.. I have seen some places with one transformer per meter/house, and others with several meters/houses off one transformer, and some apartment buildings that have dozens, all off the same transformer, but separate meters. So there is some possibility it may still work for you

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> up to 85 Mbps (faster than plain old wireless)

Reply to
Peter Pan

Why not just run cable?

Reply to
Eric

Good suggestion. The only problem is a driveway that gets a lot of traffic. I do not have the tools to tunnel under the driveway.

jm

Reply to
JM

Talk your wife into getting a back yard cement swimming pool. After a dozen cement trucks crush your driveway, trench in the conduit before replacing it.

Reply to
DTC

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