Ethernet link

[polygonum_on_google]

Some time ago, I asked about setting up a link between two properties - ove r and down a road. Not a huge distance. Line of sight except when a lorry i s delivering something.

A direct connection using a standard LAN extender proved not to be up to it , so I decided to do it properly. Got a pair of devices and set them up.

TP-LINK CPE510 Pharos Outdoor 5Ghz 13dBi WiFi 4 Point-to-Point PtP Link

Easy to set up. Simple POE. Can be used outside.

I found that one can be placed on a window sill, so a pane of glass is in t he way. The other is in the garage, through the single-brick wall immediate ly adjacent to the garage door. Despite this, they work very well. If they didn't, I have options for putting them actually outside. (I am sure that f or a greater distance, it would have to be outside.)

In the remote property, an Ethernet cable from the CPE510 to an older Netge ar LAN extender/AP covers the whole property just fine - on both 5 and 2 GH z. Things like printing and file sharing are exactly the same as in the pri me property.

I know this is a more costly approach, but I have future plans which justif y doing this. It also feels good that it worked straight away and did not n eed playing about and fettling. No feeling of good money after bad because the first idea didn't work.

[ARW]

What do you call "not a great distance"?

I have something similar to do but not at the price of the CPE510.

TBH I was considering using a socket wifi extender. Possibly something from here

All I want is the next door but one neighbours to have access to my wifi. And there is a good reason for this.

[Dave Liquorice]

With another house between you I doubt that a simple "extender" will work. An extender needs to be able to "see" your WiFi AP, which might be hard with a WiFi socket stuffed into the bottom of a wall. Extenders also half the throughput.

Is there any line of sight path between the two properties? There are some cheaper TP-Link kits on Broadband Buyer. Finding a couple of cheap APs with a detachable aerial and abilty to work in bridge mode is an option but then you need to buy external aerials...

[spuorgelgoog]

And you can't run a cable over the next-door neighbour?

One access point may well be enough if it's mounted on the outside of your house on a wall facing or alongside the recipient.

This is the cheaper version at £35 (2.4 GHz only)

And you can get cheap access points on Ebay for a tenner up. I won't recomm end one as some of them are locked to their own management software.

If your neighbour can also use an external USB wifi receiver near his exter nal wall facing you.

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

With your router in your window the signal might get through the wall.

Best to do a RF survey. Can your phone, when in the neighbours house behind the wall: See your AP? How strong is that signal relative to others on the same channel? What What other channels are in use? What are the signal strengths there? Want to pick a channel(*) where your AP is one of the stronger signals.

(*) On 2.4 GHz only channels 1, 6 & 11 don't mutually interfere with each other. If there is a strong signal on one of the other channels it may well be worth picking 1,6, or 11 that is furthest away from it.

[jrwalliker]

Only if 20MHz channels are used. If two networks use 40MHz channels then it is impossible to avoid some overlap.

John

[Martin Brown]

Before the VH had its own internet connection I used to use a flat panel directional antenna on a cheap dongle to connect back to my home network ~100m through a couple of roofs and one wall. I had intended in true DIY style to make a cantenna but ran out of time so bought one from Solwise.

You definitely need a directional antenna at least at one end.

I found I could work my base station which does shaped beam with a remote 14dB gain antenna and the cheapest high gain dongle with a detatchable antenna that I could get from Morgan. They were intended to be sacrificial for testing the cantenna but worked so well I used then.

Snag with directional antennas is that they do have a fairly narrow beam. Pointing high gain yagi antennas to work distant 3/4G nodes are so tetchy I found I needed it on a pan tilt head to get it working. Mifi pebbles with external antenna facility are handy in remote places.

It is my backup internet connection for when the wet string is broken.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Lets hope the person in between is not a ham or a short wave listener then. Brian

[polygonum_on_google]

In my precise circumstances, I can get away with "Yes, it is over there" - and just turn it a little. A greater distance would, I suspect, require gre ater precision.

If the CPE510 link goes down, I'll just use my phone as a hotspot.

Although I have unlimited data, it is slower, and it does mean I have to ke ep the phone plugged in much of the time. And, if I go out, nothing can do anything while I am out - such as big downloads or even just keeping mail u p to date.

When we first moved here, broadband was appalling. (I saw 0.07 Mbps downloa d on more than one occasion.) So we tried a 4G device - bigger than a pebbl e but similar. Inside the house was fine, but its 4G connection was flaky. Sometimes quite good, but would frequently just collapse to very poor. EE s upport (for they were the supplier) suggested buying a second one... We gav e up on 4G and tried ADSL, which was usually bad or awful.

As soon as fibre to the premises became available, we went for it.

[Dave Liquorice]

channels

True enough. Do any of the phone apps show if 20 or 40 MHz is being used? Though I have a sneaky feeling the 40 MHz is done by agregating two seperate 20 MHz ones rather than a single 40 MHz channel so it might not be relevant if both of those channels are shown.

[polygonum_on_google]

It is line of sight. In one direction, any spill past would have no impact. In the other direction, I think it could only possibly affect a small number of premises.

Do ham operators use 5 GHz?

[Dave Liquorice]

Panic yee not Brian. The device ARW suggested is a WiFi Extender (aka repeater) built into a mains wall socket not a power line device.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In fact it is more complex than that. starting with the simple binary but false statement that 'only channels 1, 6 & 11 don't mutually interfere' (and the redundant 'with each other').

Yes, they do. The 2.4Ghz spectrum is used by spread spectrum devices. And no receiver has square shaped filters. And no modulation scheme that carries useful information doesn't generate sidebands all over the place.

and

The reality is that not only can wifi share *exact* channels, using CSMA, but intermediate channels will work better if the three 'main' ones are already occupied, so to speak.

In short you share some of your band with adjacent frequencies or even frequencies that are the same). The less adjacent they are the less they share, that's all.

But Wifi is, all in all, a shit technique whose main virtue is that idiots can use it without wiring it up.

Give me copper or fibre any day.

[Dave Liquorice]

There is an allocation 5.65 GHz to 5.85 GHz, wether there is anybody there is another matter, given the limited range. Mind you you I don't know what the power limit is, I suspect it'll be somewhat more than the 100 or so mW allowed by "unlicensed" domestic WiFi kit and the use of high gain antennas.

Amateurs have allocations right up to 241 GHz, if you want to go above 275 GHz you have to get a Notice Of Variation for your licence.

[Dave Liquorice]

Wouldn't like to bet on that, though with WiFi we are talking cheap low power domestic kit.

Recently bought a SDR-RTL dongle. Tuning around in Band IV I found a step in the noise level. Thought it must be a fault or some product of the receive system. However on closer investigation this step was the edge of one of the local terrestial DTTV multiplexes. Looked up the frequencies for the three multiplex's we have and yep similar steps at the channel edges for each of those.

+1

[The Natural Philosopher]

Course not. Brian is simply being an arse as usual. The actual modulation used is effectively - unless you have the keys - white noise AM centred around 5GHz.

Just don't tell him how much power is zipping across the country in terms of 35GHz tight beam data links...or down from space from satellites....

[John Rumm]

WiFi extenders ideally need to be placed where they can both "see" the original network well, and also cover the area they are extending to wifi to. So the ideal point often being somewhere around midway between locations. So for this application, in the middle of the adjacent neighbour's house!

Access to your wifi, or access to your internet service? (in many cases one would come with the other, but that does not need to be the case).

[Andrew]

Are the two houses on the same phase ?. I have asked this before when I wanted to know if I could use a pair of home plugs in separate, but closeby houses to send internet to the other.

Most people here said it wouldn't work but nothing ventured nothing gained.

Andrew

[polygonum_on_google]

When I pit forward the "on top of a post in the gardens" suggestion, I was mentally seeing the extender actually being used more as an access point an d have a cable in the house, at least at one property. (The ones I have all have an ethernet port as well as aerials.)

[ARW]

Trust me. They are not.