Wireless from house to detached garage

Hi everybody, I'm new here, please bear w/me. The search for relevant information is overwhelming and I'm hoping that you guys can help me w/ a simple, inexpensive solution.

Situation: Verizon FIOS internet service, both wired and wireless in the main house. About 40 feet away, is a detached garage w/a room above it; it is in this structure that I'd like wireless internet w/o paying for a whole other connection from Verizon (obviously).

On the side of the main house that is FURTHEST away from the garage is the Verizon ActionTec, M1424WR, wireless router thing :-) This router is hard-wired to a PC that is on the side of the house that is closest to the garage. This router also provides wireless internet service thru the main house for my laptop when I have it at home. (Now I admit, I haven't taken the laptop to the garage and tried to get a signal, it's pretty weak just on the opposite side of the house).

What I would like to know is how to bounce/repeat/send/whatever the wireless signal from the main house to the garage. What I've checked out:

I looked into the parabolic DIY wok-fi style antennas and they seem to operate only by disabling the laptops built in wi-fi and then you have to be tethered to the wok-fi antenna, right? USB wifi dongle plugged into your laptop's USB port?

I also looked into external antennas to try and relay the signal, but there is so much information out there it's gets confusing and they seem like an expensive solution.

I looked at things like Pringles antenna and coffee can antenna and, I'm sorry, I'm not really handy so I don't know if I could build one. guess I could try.

Is it possible to get a couple of wireless routers that have repeater functions and simply plug one into the network jack in the house (on the side of the house closest to the garage) and then plug the other one into an outlet in the garage and hope the signal is strong enough to make the garage a "hot spot", or will that not work and I'd have to have a wireless router/repeater plugged DIRECTLY into a port on the ActionTech, then have another repeater in the house and yet another in the garage to pick it up?

Any tips, hints, points to links, etc., would be greatly appreciated Thank you!!!!!

Reply to
myadmin1
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If you have some signal, a simple reflector on the router might make things very good. You could also use a USB client adapter in the garage that has a directional antenna included, or has an antenna where you could put another reflector.

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EZ-12, printed on photo paper for thick stock, with aluminum foil glued to the sail, provides a substantial boost in signal.
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The netstumbler trace shows solid signal as I walked back to the router, a dropout as I blocked the router, taking off the reflector, and then the lower signal without the reflector, reduced, and fluctuating in level.

Make the tabs longer than the template drawing, for easier assembly.

Reply to
dold

At 40 ft wouldn't it be fairly easy just to run a CAT5 cable and plug it into a 5 port switch.

Reply to
Don Harvey

I can think of plenty of situations where that would be a whole lot of trouble. Big patch of concrete patio would be one of many obstacles that'd make it quite difficult to 'just run a wire'.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

Bill,

You could be right, but installing an external antenna may present the same problem. If the room is over the garage there should be easy access someplace. I ran into a similar problem in that the cable modem and router is on the 2nd floor and my office is in the basement. Poor wireless connection so I ran CAT5 down the outside of the house and into the basement and used a 5 port switch which supports 2 computers and 2 VoIP phones.

Reply to
Don Harvey

There's also the electrical damage risks, lightning mainly. Best to NOT run copper CAT5 ethernet between buildings. Use fiber instead.

If he want to have wifi in the outbuilding here's one way to do it.

Setup an access point in the house. Put a highly directional antenna on it. Wire it into the existing network. Point said antenna at the outbuilding. Go to the outbuilding and see if there's decent coverage, if so, DONE!

If not then put a 2nd access point acting as a client out there. Put a directional antenna on it and point it at the one in the house. Connect a PC to the wired ethernet port and you're done. If you want actual wifi in the outbuilding then put ANOTHER access point on a wired connection.

This way you'd go from wifi laptop in the outbuilding to the access point. The wired to the client, connecting wirelessly to the house. From the house access point on into the wired network. That's a a fair bit of equipment but access points are relatively cheap these days.

What you're doing here is running three wireless networks. An existing one in the house, leave it alone if it's working. The second network is just between the house and the outbuilding. It does nothing but provide a point-to-point link. This allows controlling the antenna placement so as to get the best possible performance. This also means the existing in-house wifi won't get screwed up trying to rejigger then antennae on it. The third wifi network just covers the outbuilding itself. This also allows the antenna placement to be arranged to best cover the building without screwing up the point-to-point link.

It sounds like a lot, and running a wire or fiber would CERTAINLY be less equipment, possible cheaper too.

I have a setup like this on our boat. Two access points, one to make a connection to shore and another to provide an on-boat wifi network. Works great. I use Linksys WRT54G (pre version 5) routers running DD-WRT for it.

-Bill Kearney

Reply to
Bill Kearney

40 feet for a personal connection? You are over-engineering the solution.

It's farther than that from my router to the places that I sit with my laptop in and around my house. The signal passes through two outside walls, a distance of 60 feet, to get to a spot where I had minimal to no coverage before putting a free reflector on my router.

I used to see dropouts as I was typing, with the WiFi card on the side of the laptop opposite the router. Sometimes the connection would recover, sometimes I would lose my ssh connection. Now it's solid.

The best thing about the reflectors is, as pointed out by the author on the freeantennas web page is that they are free and cause no damage to the equipment. If it works, you are done. If it almost works, you have a clue of how much additional gain you might need to make the connection. If it doesn't work at all, you have some serious work to do, like adding access points or bridges... and with hose, you are back to testing the improvements offered by free reflectors.

Reply to
dold

A directional antenna or reflector at your router just might work. Try the reflector Clarence mentioned - they work and it's free!

Another very simple option is to use Powerline Networking. You plug an adapter into the your router and then into the wall. As long as your garage has a socket is on the same leg of the transformer, you can plug in another adapter there for either ethernet or local wifi. Plug directly into the wall, no power strips.

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Within the netgear line, go with the XE not the HD series - from what I've read, the HDs have electrical interference problems.

I've been buying the older Netgear ones (XE102) on ebay or Amazon fairly cheaply. They also have a version that gives wifi wherever you plug it in, but it gets quite hot and is reported to have a high failure rate. I have one that has not failed, but I try to keep it cool. Perhaps it's more reliable to use a pair of straight ethernet adapters with a cheap wireless router cabled to the remote one.

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Steve

Reply to
seaweedsteve

I thought I replied to this, but don't see it, so here goes again .... wouldn't I have to bury a conduit for this? I can't imagine stringing a cable that far and having it look halfway decent ??

If I did bury a conduit, any rules on how deep? I'm near Boston, it gets cold, ground freezes, etc.

Thanks.

Reply to
myadmin1

Hows the outbuilding get it's electric? From the house, or a seperate feed/meter?

If the same feed/one meter, I've had great sucess with powerline networking, one unit in the house by the modem, and then a second unit with a wap/router whereever I want both wired and wireless.. Powerline networking under $140, spare wap/routers are under $50... Have the combo on power strips, and just plug em in wherever I want more coverage (garage, back yard, patio, gazebo, other end of the house where the Tivo's live/etc) if your answer is the outbuilding gets it's power from the house (or anyone lurking here wants em), I'd be glad to post the links for you....

Heck, why do two posts when one will do... here the link for the netgear powerline stuff

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and the wap routers are from walmart Linksys wrt54g (for $49.17)
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Fraid you are on your own for power strips, but you can usually find them for $2-$3 each.....

Reply to
Peter Pan

Depends on your location. There's essentially no chance of my external cat5 getting hit by ligntning. It runs along the base of a wall, then inside a hedge, to get to my garden shed. Meanwhile my house is about

50ft taller, has a huge metal spike on the roof (ie a TV aerial) and is surrounded by other similar objects. Also I'm in a valley, with many trees at a much higher altitude. And we very rarely get storms...

Well, in many cases its entirely safe. The biggest risk /my/ cable has is probably mouse damage. After that, it's meteor strike.... :-)

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Depends on your circumstances and what you have to cross. I have my CAT5e cable nailed to a wall with household cable clips, then hidden inside a hedge. It looks no worse than the various telephone / TV / power cables that already adorn the outside of most houses.

50cm is considered prudent to avoid garden spades etc.

In the UK its a requirement that the trench be in a *straight line* from where it goes underground to where it emerges, unless there are extraordinary circumstances. This ensures it is easy to determine the path when you're running in a new drain etc...

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

If multiple ports are needed in the garage, NETGEAR WGPS606 54 Mbps Wireless Print Server with 4-port Switch is $80 at Amazon, and has an antenna that would accept a free reflector, improving the range.

Reply to
dold

... Thanks for that, it's actually going to have it's own meter :-(, so that won't work.

What about this: What if I get an ethernet switch, plug it into the wall jack closest to the garage side of the house, then plug a WAP into that and put the parabolic antenna on the AP? First, I'll try the reflector on the ActionTec equipment that Verizon gave us (which I "need" because I have their FIOS cable TV service). I just can't imagine it increasing the signal enough to go across the house, across the span to the garage and then into the garage w/enough strength to run the laptop satisfactorily.

(Side note: I'd need that ethernet switch since there is a PC in that room closest to the garage that I like to have hardwired into the network, figured I'd go wall jack to switch, then plug PC and WAP into the switch.)

I'm just hoping that, if I'm going to need a WAP, that it'll play nice w/the ActionTec router from Verizon, I don't want to get into screwing things up.

Reply to
myadmin1

If the building gets hit then anything with a wire between the buildings is going to be at risk.

But hey, I only ran the networking on an 80 acre campus with over a dozen buildings. We had to deal with not only lightning strikes but all sorts of ground issues. So forgive me if I don't agree with your logic.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

If you configure one as a dumb access point it shouldn't matter. Just turn off any services on it. As in, don't let it issue it's own DHCP responses. Have it pass the requests to the existing router.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

If the shed gets hit, then I'll be buying more lottery tickets. I have a better chance of winning that, than a small wooden structure in the middle of an estate of much taller buildings has of getting struck by lightning.

Mind you, if the impossible does happen I'm screwed anyway - the mains power for the shed comes from the main distro board in the house - so a length of cat5 is neither here nor there.

I don't give two hoots how large your cohones are, the point is you overgeneralise.

I'm sure that in a huge campus of mixed construction with dozens of tall buildings standing alone in the middle of playing fields, in a storm-prone district and with different phases supplying different buildings, and with a mad utility company that's forever relaying drains, Cat5e is a bad plan.

On the other hand, down a garden in a residential location in the middle of the UK, a risk this is not.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Not sure who wrote that, but instead of cat5 look into the powerline networking (ethernet bridge over powerlines, see the links for more info in a previous message in this thread).... You situation sounds like what it was meant for (you already have power from one building to another)......

Reply to
Peter Pan

Okay, no powerline netwoking, another q... what will you be sharing between the two locations? (just slow stuff like internet, or big files over network segments?)..

Couldn't tell from your posts, but where are you at (generally).... wireless is very picky about fresnel zones, snow on the ground, leafs on the trees (in the spring/summer), landscaping between the buildings (hills/rocks/etc) ....

Just an aside, we worried about setting up a wireless network for our own needs, no matter how the connection arrived/rather than based on what was given us by the provider (we had sat ((deer hunter missed the deer and shot my sat dish)), then dsl ((squirrels chewed thru the phone cable)), then comcast cable tv and internet (water got in the cable connections on the pole and it died)), and now verizon fios ((even a nuke/emp won't kill fiber!)) and even have the cell phone data thing for emergency backup use ... We set up the wireless network so it would work the same no matter what provided us an internet connection.

At any rate, what you had asked about above may/may not work depending on your location/terrain/climate....

Reply to
Peter Pan

I think you have a great game plan there. Try the reflector first, just for fun. You can use it somewhere someday if not there.

Then get a pair of powerline networking adapters and play. Plug one in at the router and then another in the garage, just to see. Might still work across the meter if it's on the same leg from the transformer. If it works, then you have more options - ie; a third adapter that is an ap in the garage and the 2nd one with the desktop.

Finally, your plan to put an adapter/wireless router in at the end of the house by the garage sounds wise. Kill two birds and all that. As long as the materials between the garage and the desktop are not a significant barrier (ie. metal firedoors or double walls of concrete).

By the way, my comment about the powerstrip is the common spec they give. They often do work with powerstrips. Just try it straight first.

Steve

Reply to
seaweedsteve

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