Extending the range on wireless

[Cliffh]

I know we've had discussions about this many times, but my search ability is weak today.  Can't find anything newer than 2014 and I'll bet things have changed a bit since then.

Anyways, I've got a ViaSat RM4000 series satellite modem attached to a D Link DIR619L router in a residential wood framed house on 5 acres.  I get fair wireless coverage near the house, but would like to extend the range to where I can get adequate signal out to about 200 yards. 

I'm most interested in the signal towards the work shop.  It's about 200' from the router, with 3 rooms of the house in between. Right now I get maybe one bar on my phone outside the shop, inside the metal shed there's nothing.  I'm not too concerned about getting the signal inside the shop, having a good signal outside the shop would be fine.  The signal to the rest of the property would only have to go through at most two walls of the house, the signal to the back yard would only have to go through one wall/window.

What are some of my options?  I wouldn't like to run cable, but I can make & run a cable if necessary.

[kgbsquirrel]

Directional antenna?

[BobR]

Back in the day when I worked in Montana and the on-site internet blocked all of the fun sites I rigged up a Hawking inline antenna amplifier and a US Robotics directional antenna to shoot my home signal about 100 yds and through 3 walls (a large ambulance bay and wall to the space I was in). It was good enough for us to get a decent signal inside the ER so we could go to places the .gov didn't think we needed to go. As this was nearly 20 years ago I would bet the technology has done nothing but get better.

bob

eta: I had almost forgotten. The cantenna.

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cantenna

[Brad Johnson]

May not be in your budget, but still impressive range.

https://youtu.be/qJeKZkK31JE

Brad

[Jim147]

At my cabin I have an old Hawking antenna in an old dish antenna with a piece of sheet metal for a rain cover pointed at the house.

Until we went internet tv I used to have other repeaters getting it way over 200 yards.

[Ben]

TPLink might have what you need at a reasonable price with what looks like a pretty intuitive interface:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-CPE210-300Mbps-dual-polarized-directional/dp/B00P4JKQGK/ref=psdc_1194486_t1_B07953S2FD?th=1

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Wireless-MU-MIMO-Gigabit-EAP225-Outdoor/dp/B07953S2FD/ref=psdc_1194486_t1_B00P4JKQGK?th=1

[Cliffh]

TPLink might have what you need at a reasonable price with what looks like a pretty intuitive interface:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-CPE210-300Mbps-dual-polarized-directional/dp/B00P4JKQGK/ref=psdc_1194486_t1_B07953S2FD?th=1

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Wireless-MU-MIMO-Gigabit-EAP225-Outdoor/dp/B07953S2FD/ref=psdc_1194486_t1_B00P4JKQGK?th=1

The TP-Link EAP225-Outdoor looks interesting.  Don't have the time right now to read the manual for it, but a quick look at the specs/reviews on Amazon seem to indicate it'll do what I want. 

....provides stable wireless coverage up to 200m+ range at 2.4GHz and 300m+ at 5GHz in outdoor settings.

That distance would more than reach all areas of my property, and then some.  Didn't see whether it was directional or not, I'm thinking not.

And the price is good too.

[HeroHog]

Google DuckDuckGo: Pringles can WiFi antenna

[230RN]

Try moving inadvertent reflectors around.  Not that you should move a refrigerator in the kitchen to anywhere but it can be surprising how much those itty bitty radio waves act like light, with shadows and bright spots.

Someone mentioned a sheet metal cover on something.  Maybe there are things like that in your situation which can bounce the radio waves around to make a better signal.

Example:  I live in a sort of radio dead spot in a sort of valley.  My over-the-air TV reception can get screwed up if my apartment building neighbor opens his front door (metal, like all of them).  Also, when the line of pine trees outside get wet from rain, that can mess me up, especially if it's windy.

Another example:  In the house, I have to hold my old cell phone up in the air and slowly move it around to get connected, then it's "locked" in and I can use it normally.

You get above 300 mHz and radio waves get "funny," no two ways about it.

Terry, 230RN

[kgbsquirrel]

Try moving inadvertent reflectors around.  Not that you should move a refrigerator in the kitchen to anywhere but it can be surprising how much those itty bitty radio waves act like light, with shadows and bright spots.

Someone mentioned a sheet metal cover on something.  Maybe there are things like that in your situation which can bounce the radio waves around to make a better signal.

Example:  I live in a sort of radio dead spot in a sort of valley.  My over-the-air TV reception can get screwed up if my apartment building neighbor opens his front door (metal, like all of them).  Also, when the line of pine trees outside get wet from rain, that can mess me up, especially if it's windy.


Another example:  In the house, I have to hold my old cell phone up in the air and slowly move it around to get connected, then it's "locked" in and I can use it normally.

You get above 300 mHz and radio waves get "funny," no two ways about it.

Terry, 230RN

Well, they're photons, so....   

[230RN]

^ Yes.  Well, maybe I should have said visible light just to emphasize the effect, but that would have been too technically limiting.

My bathroom has no windows, but I can maneuver around in there with the lights off just from stray light bouncing around the house . I couldn't read a newspaper, but I could find my toothbrush just from miscellaneous photons be-bopping around.

Typically, the human eye can detect wavelengths from 700 to 380 nanometers, red to violet (ROYGBIV).

Nanometers, 10^{minus nine}. get it?  Nano, nine?

For a reference point, the wavelength of a 1 GHz signal is about 0.3 meters, just about a foot.  Your microwave (µwave) oven generates energy at a little less than half a foot.  (Most I've seen were 2450 MHz, or 2.540 GHz.  Note the decimal point shift of three places.)

I remember that in the first car we had with an FM radio (88-108 MHz) at certain speeds and locations, the signal would cut in and out very rapidly.  The phenomenon was called "picket fencing." With today's higher sensitivity receivers and better AGC*, this rarely happens any more except maybe at the fringes of the broadcast station's range.  OTR truckers might still notice this.

Oh well, 'nuffa that.  Kind of a long walk from FM radio at 3.41 Meters (88 MHz) to 380 nanometers (Ultraviolet light).

Terry. 230RN

* Added: "AGC" = "Automatic Gain Control"

[kgbsquirrel]

*counting* I've got instrumentation for: radio, long infrared, short infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma.

Still need a microwave receiver of some sort.

[RocketMan]

*counting* I've got instrumentation for: radio, long infrared, short infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma.

Still need a microwave receiver of some sort.

Get yourself an RTL-SDR Blog V3 R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio USB Dongle.  For just $30 bucks you get a USB software defined radio that can receive from 500 kHz up to 1.75 GHz. 
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/

Among other uses, I've been using one to sniff out adjacent channel interference to our wireless microphone system at church.
Coupled with open source SDR# (or SDR++ if you prefer Linux) software, it works very nicely for aircraft, public safety, land mobile and ham band reception throughout the VHF and UHF spectrum.  I've been using SDR# on a Windows 10 laptop with mine.