Wifi and Windows...

Ok, on the 2nd story of my house in my office I have a WRT54G v6.0.
It's running DDWRT... now, in my bedroom about 40 feet from my office I
have another WRT54G v1.0 running DDWRT in Wireless Bridge mode as well.
have a large glass patio door and looking out of it you can see my
workshop, which is a steel pole shed (finished, insulated, etc) about
250 feet away line of site, no obstructions.

As far as wifi signal, I can only get about halfway to the shop with a
laptop and Netstumbler before the signal isn't good enough. With the
router outside of the window, I can get to the door of the shop.

So I bought a 11db flat panel 30deg antenna and tried that. Through the
window I can make it about 3/4 of the way to the shop. Haven't tried
outside yet. also haven't really tried aiming it yet at all.

Here's the funny thing. In my basement (2 floors down from the main
router) I have a Wii and a desktop with a wifi card. On the Pc I get
Great signal (all 5 bars in M$ network viewer) and the Wii gets a good
signal too. This is through at least 2 floors, maybe even a couple walls.

i plan on trying the directional antenna from the repeater outside, but
I thought it would have gave me a little more distance than it did, even
through a window. The window actually seems to block more, or just as
much as walls.

My goal is to get Wifi to my shop without anything else besides my
directional antenna. If not, I'm praying ethernet over power will work.
( have the 102s from Netgear, just don't have power to the shop yet to
try it)

I just find it curious that outside of the window I get at least 50%
better range than inside of the window. Are some windows just more
reflective?

> I just find it curious that outside of the window I get at least 50%
> better range than inside of the window. Are some windows just more
> reflective?

Oh yes they are. We've got a sun room with some UV coating on the glass
that almost completely blocks WiFi. We've got an L-shaped house and there's
a WiFi access point at the inner corner of the L. There's a door in the sun
room that's in direct line of sight between a table and the access point.
Close the door and I barely get 1 bar. Open the door and I get all 5.

Your solution for covering the shed would probably be best served with an
external directional antenna. And that wouldn't allow local wireless
coverage. Given that access points are relatively cheap these days you'd
probably be best served just getting another one. Have one covering the
office and then the other handling a directional signal to the shed. Just
make sure the shed's construction isn't also going to block the signal. If
that's the case then you'd have to look at a similar solution to bridge the
signal. But at that point you'd really have to question the whole idea...

-Bill Kearney

Bill Kearney wrote:
>> I just find it curious that outside of the window I get at least 50%
>> better range than inside of the window. Are some windows just more
>> reflective?
>
> Oh yes they are. We've got a sun room with some UV coating on the glass
> that almost completely blocks WiFi. We've got an L-shaped house and there's
> a WiFi access point at the inner corner of the L. There's a door in the sun
> room that's in direct line of sight between a table and the access point.
> Close the door and I barely get 1 bar. Open the door and I get all 5.
>
> Your solution for covering the shed would probably be best served with an
> external directional antenna. And that wouldn't allow local wireless
> coverage. Given that access points are relatively cheap these days you'd
> probably be best served just getting another one. Have one covering the
> office and then the other handling a directional signal to the shed. Just
> make sure the shed's construction isn't also going to block the signal. If
> that's the case then you'd have to look at a similar solution to bridge the
> signal. But at that point you'd really have to question the whole idea...
>
> -Bill Kearney
>
>


that's how I have things set up now. One AP in the office which
actually covers the whole house nicely. The second AP running as a
bridge is just to "shoot" wifi at the shed. So, I'm going to have to
play around to see how well it will work.. it is a steel building, but
hopefully the 11db directional will penetrate it.

There's always EoP, if that works.. I've used it before in the house and
it works pretty good.

legbuh wrote:

>
> i plan on trying the directional antenna from the repeater outside,
> but I thought it would have gave me a little more distance than it did,
> even through a window. The window actually seems to block more, or
> just as much as walls.
>
> My goal is to get Wifi to my shop without anything else besides my
> directional antenna. If not, I'm praying ethernet over power will
> work. ( have the 102s from Netgear, just don't have power to the
> shop yet to try it)
>
> I just find it curious that outside of the window I get at least 50%
> better range than inside of the window. Are some windows just more
> reflective?

Just two asides..
First, sliding glass patio doors are the absolute worst for wifi signals
(some sort of UV blocker in/on the glass also stops wifi signals)
while your wireless goal is laudable, depending on where you live (winter
snow, summer foliage, will really mess with wireless)
Second, since you obviously will have power to that pesky building, look at
powerline networking.. For ours we had a wap/wouter inside our steel snow
roof outbuilding, netgear powerline networking ( up to 85 mbps
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Powe...tAdapters.aspx
(plenty fast enuf for the internet with bursts up to 16 - about $130 for
both ends, they are the 104's, not those pesky 102's that are problematical,
they don't even sell em anymore), and just used one connected from the
output of the inside wap/router and the other to the router input (not the
wan) of the unit in the outbilding (had both wired and wireless that way,
linksys wrt54g - $48 at walmart, went with no seamless roaming, different
ssid and dhcp on)

Peter Pan <PeterPanNOSPAM@akamailnospam.com> wrote:
> First, sliding glass patio doors are the absolute worst for wifi signals

Some, maybe even most, but not mine.
My best measured signal strength is off line, through a sliding glass door,
rather than straight line through the adjacent wall.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5