How to use a Yagi and Linksys together. Please help.

I'm at my witts end and I need help.
My sister's house is about 200 yards away. I walk over to her house with my laptop and use her wireless connection. As I'm walking back to my house, I can still pick up her signal about half way, then that's it. (sometimes, when the wind blows right, I can access her signal at my house with just my laptop, but not often)

So I bought a yagi antenna so I can access her wireless. I already have a linksys router I used in the past and it worked great. (when I lived elsewhere and had internet service at my house).

I hooked the yagi onto one of the antennas of the Linksys, but I still can't get her connection.

My computer is reading my linksys no problem, I have an "excellent" signal, but not about to access the internet.

I'm not a techie, but this should be a simple solution, no? Can someone help me out without being to technie on me?

I've read I have to access "192.168.2.1" but I don't know how (or what this is) and change a bunch of stuff.

I'm seeing hundreds of articles and videos on how easy this is, so I must be missing something.

Can someone please let me know what I need to do to access the wireless signal with my yagi and linksys?

I see three possible problems....

1) You have too much coax cable loss and it defeats any gain you get from the antenna.

2) You connected the external antenna to the wrong antenna port of the Links.

3) If you can't connect without the external antenna (put the stock rubber ducky antenna back on), then it's a networking problem that has nothing to do with the external antenna.

I would use a pair of $49 Ubiquiti Loco M2 radios at each end to create a wireless bridge.

Thanks!
-I only have about 1 foot of coax cable.
-I tried to connect the antenna up to both sides, same results.
-I don't know if I can connect or not, that seems to be the issue. I guess my question is can my linksys BEFW11S4 v.4 be used as a repeater or an access point? (i'm not sure what the correct terminology is)

With that short of cable, I don't imagine you have your Linksys mounted on the roof, rather it's indoors and the Yagi antenna is a few feet off the ground. You would be better off mounting a pair of low cost radios on both roofs and making a bridged link.

no, you cant use a BEFW11S4 as a Wireless Bridge, and you can't load DD-WRT onto it and make it a bridge

I was able to get a wrt54g V6 router and I'm still having troubles turning into a wireless repeater/bridge or whatever it's called.

I simple want to pick up a faint single and "rebroadcast" it is all. Just like if I take my laptop to a coffee shop and pick up that single.

I'm scared of installing this dd-wrt firmware. I have seen all kinds of different ways to install it. Some taking 2 minutes, some taking 20 minutes. Some using multiple downloads and some using only one download. So, installing that really is confusing.

I did run across an article saying this router can be used in the sense I want to without having to use dd-wrt:

"Setup > basic setup > select 'auto config DHCP' in the connection type drop-down; enter a good (outside of your DHCP range) IP address (and, of course, match your current subnet); and click 'disable' on the DHCP server line.
Then (here's where it becomes an AP; but, the wording's a bit wierd):
Setup > advanced routing > select 'router' from the operating mode drop-down (in Linksys, Router = AP, Gateway = Router); 'both' on the dynamic routing line; and 'LAN & Wireless' on the interface entry.

Of course, remember to click the 'save changes' button before you go on to the next screen. Do, this, and your WRT54G is now a switch/WAP. And, for quite a bit less cash than a WAP54G goes for.
Oh, and when you connect it to your network: use a LAN port. The WAN port won't work anymore."

I did that and it's still not working. Can anyone tell me if there is something left out of that configuration?

Or, is there a basic simple way to install this dd-wrt that doesn't freak me out?

Thanks.

I would use a pair of $49 Ubiquiti Loco M2 radios at each end to create a wireless bridge.