Use PC as a wireless repeater to extend range

snipped-for-privacy@stonyx.com hath wroth:

With the USB adapter, no. Infrastructure clients only talk to access points, not to other clients.

By any chance is your well connected wireless upstairs router have WDS (wireless distribution service) support? If you're not sure, kindly disclose the maker and model number. WDS supports simultaneously acting as a store and forward repeater and as an access point. Install one near the middle floor PC. Sell the USB adapter. Run CAT5 from the middle floor PC to the added WDS bridge. Connect via wireless from downstairs. Note that both the upstairs and downstairs boxes need to support WDS. Also, watch out for WDS bridges that do NOT support WPA encryption. Some do, but some don't.

But isn't an ad-hoc network configuration an example of clients talking to clients and not to an access point? Is it possible to have some sort of combination where the access point talks to the machine on the main level and the machine on the main level talks to the one in the basement? Just throwing ideas out there.

Thanks, Harry

Correct. However, you didn't say anything about either infrastructure mode or ad-hoc mode. Since infrastructure is far more common, I assumed that this is what you're doing. If you have an access point or wireless router, you have an infrastructure mode network. If you don't, then it's probably ad-hoc.

Well, actually it's possible. It might be worth the effort if you don't mind a major exercise in software development to save the cost of a WDS bridge. Some of the mesh networks are essentially combination client bridges and repeaters. For example, Meraki

is selling radios that do this. Each client radio repeats the traffic from other client radios that eventually end up at a central access point. You could build such a system inside your house, which will pass traffic between floors and radios. There are also a variety of open source efforts to do the same thing:

There are a few others, but I can't seem to find them.

It might also be possible to install two wireless cards or devices in your middle PC, and set them up as some kind of repeater. Offhand, I don't know how this can be done and really don't want try and guess(tm) how to do it. Besides, I thought you had a "quick" question.

For only a single hop, methinks a WDS bridge will be a much simpler and cheaper solution.

Thanks so much for the input, highly appreciated. I got one more quick :) question ... do directional antennas make a difference in the real worlds? All three machines are more or less in a straight line (downwards) so I thought maybe a directional antenna either on the basement machine or on the upstairs machine (where the signal comes from) might help ... any input?

Thanks, Harry

snipped-for-privacy@stonyx.com hath wroth:

Yes, they do. Antennas make a HUGE difference. For example, a 6dB difference in antenna gain will double your range. If you leave the range the same, the 6dB difference in signal level will be good for a doubling in connection speed. Getting 6dB of directional gain is easy with a biquad, coffee can, or reflector antenna.

Yep. That's well worth trying. If you can get even a weak signal with the conventional antennas, a directional antenna will be much better. However, if your floors are chicken wire, concrete and steel, and you can't hear a thing, then not antenna is going to help much.

Try starting with a reflector:

Yes.

You could make your connection via WiFi and share a second WiFi adapter in the same PC. I recall a poster in this group who was using an external WiFi antenna to bring signal inside a boat, and a second WiFi adapter in the same machine in adhoc mode to let a PDA have access.