Need help optimizing wireless signal

Hello All,

I live in Costa Rica and recently I was visiting a friend on the beach. During previous trips I had noticed the WiFi signal was weak. So I took 2 routers (E4200 v1 and a DIR-825 rev. b) to see what kind of improvement could be seen. I also took a long cable to move the router around to find the best location possible.

I never ended up trying the DIR-825 because the E4200 had much better signal in my own environment.

So we found that the best signal distribution was if we placed the router on the second floor (house has 3 floors) at the top of the stairs. Essentially in the center of the home.

This gave fantastic signal in most of the house. There are 3 rooms that are on the first floor in the back of the home which got poor signal quality (1 bar at most).

The home is made from large cinder block, concrete, steel rebar and hardwood.

I have a few concerns:

1. Getting better signal in the 3 rooms that don't have good signal.

2. Protecting the router from humidity.

With regards to #1.

I have read many times that putting better Antennas on a router may result in a better signal "reaching" the devices connecting via WiFi but those devices would NOT be able to send the signal back.

I have also read that using extenders using WDS cuts network bandwidth in half so that might not be such a great idea either.

I thought about adding another router in the back of the house and using a CAT5E to connect them together. The only problem with this is that I cannot locate a decent All Weather router.

The final option was to get an Asus N66U and hope that the 10% better performance that it has will push the signal into those rooms.

With regards to #2.

Costa Rica is a tropical place with very high humidity on a sunny day (high 80%) and during a tropical down pour your looking at the (high 90%). Heat is also a concern as it reaches 40 degrees celcius.

The house is very open air, meaning clouds, moisture flows in and out freely. The location that worked best was in the hallway that is completely open to the outside air. There is a very large deck covering the area we plan to put the router and a roof above that so it won't have direct contact with rain or sun.

Are there any solutions that would not affect signal but provide some humidity protection for the unit?

I apologize for the lengthy post, just wanted to make sure that you guys had all the details to help out

Thanks in advance!

Nick

Bump. Anyone have any suggestions or comments?