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Hi, My club and I are having a "games night" and where we are having it there is no internet or strong wireless signal. Is there any way that we can get internet, by either "router bouncing," boosting a wireless signal and converting it to LAN or anything else you can think of. we can't move the location and we can't spend thousands of dollars.
Johnathan Hall
You don't state just how far you need to boost your WiFi signal. Just how far is the target location from a good Internet connection? I currently maintain a WiFi connection about 300 yards and through a grove of trees (no line-of-sight) by just using consumer grade wireless routers modified with homemade parabolic reflectors and old directTV satallite dishes. The important aspect is having everything protected from the weather.
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With the right antenna setup, that can be easily done with WiFi. However, if it is a rural area (which the term "cabin" implies), then can't you just run an outdoor grade Ethernet cable between the two? That would be a much more robust connection.
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Well my cabin is in a urban area so it will have to be antennas. Is there a website were that shows me what i need and how to set up the antennas?
Johnathan Hall
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Well, itguru has already posted a link with information about that. There are lots of websites on the subject. People have been doing this all over the world now for years. There are many different designs and even websites where the different kinds of antennas are compared in a fairly scientific way. If your asking about a low cost Do-It-Yourself type solution, what you'll find are people describing what they did and how it works. If you want something that's more plug and play for your particular situation, then you will have to go the commercial route and just buy the equipment which will be provided with instructions on how to set it up. I wanted to keep it cheap (under $100), so I spent many hours on the Internet studying different designs and sort of combined a couple of ideas for a solution which fit with the stuff I already had at hand. Mainly, I had TV satallite dishes already available for free. There are at least a couple of websites where people showed how they modified these kinds of parabolic dishes to make high gain WiFi antennas. I combined that idea with the homemade parabolic reflectors detailed at freeantennas.com and came up with a system that didn't cost much more than the price of the two wireless routers used in the link (note: one of these routers has to be capable of wireless bridging). However, I was also able to mount my antenna in an attic which protects it from the weather. It would have been more involved if I had to have provided some kind of weatherproof structure to protect the system.
What do you already have? Do you already have any kind of WiFi equipement at all? Are you capable of using tools and fabricating things if provided pictures or basic sketches?
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i have the routers and i am capable of fabricating most things if given the instructions or "sketches" as you said.
Johnathan Hall
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Okay, I'll provide some suggestions as to how I would go about it based on the conditions you've described. But, individual circumstances are unique and if I were actually seeing the situation from your perspective, I would possibly do things very differently. I recommend that you also do web searches on subjects like "wifi antenna", etc. and get other perspectives on the subject.
First; take the two wireless routers that you have and at your friends house configure the two units as if one of them were at your cabin. One of them will just be configured as a conventional wireless AP and the other will be in client mode where it uses it's wireless connection as the WAN or Internet connection. I would suggest using static IP addressing, this is not an application where DHCP is useful. Confirm that when a computer is connected to the router working in wireless client mode that the computer is connected to the Internet.
Second; Confirm good locations at both, your friends house and your cabin, where you'll be able to set these routers up and where they will have a clear line-of-sight to each other. What would be ideal would be if there were a window on the house and another on the cabin which face each other which could be used, that would make things a lot easier. If not, then maybe use some weather-treated lumber to build basic 2'x2' platforms outside around the house and the cabin. These platforms have to located in the good line-of-sight positions and where you will be able to safely run power and Ethernet cables.
Third; look at the parabolic reflector designs on freeantennas.com. I've made many of these now with nothing more than 1) computer and printer, where I could resize the parabolic templates on the computer and print out the results. 2) Cardboard cut from a shipping box. 3) 12oz Aluminum soda or beer can. 4) Superglue and perhaps "Elmer's"-type glue for sticking the paper templates to the cardboard 5) Single edge razor blades and tinsnipes (or really good stainless steel sissors will work if it's just the beer or soda cans). I just made a couple of parabolic arcs by cutting the templates glued to the cardboard with the razor blades, cut the ends off the aluminum can and then made a single cut down the "barrel" which gave me a "sheet" of aluminum, and then used superglue to stick this aluminum sheet to follow the cardboard arcs. It is amazing the effective power increase one of these reflectors gives to one of those standard 2dB antennas that come on wireless routers.
Forth; Experiment with the two routers with the reflector enhanced antennas. From my experience it may be possible (just "possible") that IF you have a good line-of-sight and with ideal conditions, these two routers might be able to connect between the house and the cabin. It will require somebody at each end talking to each other with phones or walkie-talkies, experimenting with different positionings of the routers. And it probably won't be the solid, stable connection that you eventually want. But, it'll be a start. If you can actually connect with the little 2dB antennas and the small beer/soda can reflectors, then maybe buy materials to make bigger and better reflectors. Or, maybe buy 7dB antennas to replace the 2dB antennas and make bigger reflectors for those.
Finally, if you had to set this up on wooden platforms outside to make it work, you can weatherproof the routers by simple screwing a 5-gallon plastic paint bucket upside-down over the router and antenna. Just take a small chunk of plastic from the bucket (like from the lid which you don't use) and stick it in a microwave oven. If it doesn't get hot after a minute or two of the microwave, then the plastic is not absorbing microwaves and will not effect the wireless transmission.
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