WiFi question

pmanton

pmanton

Final Approach
PoA Supporter
Joined
Jun 7, 2008
Messages
5,273
Location
Indian Hills Airpark Salome, AZ
Display Name
Display name:
N1431A
I have to get an internet signal to my wife's sewing room in the back of our hangar.
small.jpg
Our house is the one with the hangar door open and my red truck parked in front.
Our computers, and router with WiFi, are located in the middle left of the house under the peaked place in the rood. The wife's sewing room runs across the back of the steel 50X50 hangar.

WiFi doesn't penetrate the hangar. Cable would be difficult. There is no crawl space above the ceiling and I'm not about to get under the house .

How can I do this guys? My wife puts up with living in the AZ outback for me so I'm gonna get her internet in her sewing room.

Thanks

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
Get a WIFI repeater, you probably will need one with an external antennas, mount the receiving antenna on the outside of hangar wall, on the side facing the house, probably underneath the roof connecting the two structures.
 
With metal siding, your best bet is likely power line repeater, and an extra access point in the sewing room. Everything else is just going to bounce most of the signal off the siding. Do note that I be heard that the power line repeaters don't like being on extension cords, and in some places, you may need to play to get them on the same side of the split phase.
 
Yeah, metal walls and radio signals are a problem. Google Faraday...
Try the powerline repeater or pull a cable (how bad could it be?).
 
The power line requires both to be on the same feed from the pole, probably the case here, so that would be easier.
 
Power line network should do the trick, as long as the hangar is wired off the same panel as the house.
 
Unless you can get powerline to work, I can practically guarantee you that pulling a cable will be the easiest and most reliable way to do it.

Rich
 
Thanks all. I ordered the powerline stuff from Amazon.

Cable, I sure hope not. I'm 80 and ain't gonna even try the under the house thing. Do you have ANY idea what kind of critters live under a house in the AZ desert. Then there's a concrete patio under the breezway between the house and the hangar. I'd have to bury it when it came out of the house. Ugh !

I love living where I do but handymen are few and far between.

Ah 80 out, 16% humidity, can't decide if I'll pull the plane out for a sunset hop, or wait till morning :D

Paul
 
Ah! you have made a decision ...

1.
If you have a spare phone pair between the locations you could consider these.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BOD8C9W/ref=psdc_3015439011_t1_B002CLKFTG

$200 ish for both ends.

Reviews look OK.

Might be tough to get going without some technical knowledge. You will need to terminate the cable appropriately into RJ-45 connectors.

2.
Even if the two buildings are on different phases, if you have both phases presented such that you can connect them with an ethernet cable you can use 4 power line adapters and connect it all up. The TP-Link website shows such an arrangement.

https://www.tp-link.com/us/faq-406.html
Q: Can TP-LINK powerline adapters work in different phases of three-phase circuit?
There is a diagram.

If the two circuits were electrically very separate you could use a fiber link for peace of mind.
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ethernet-Converter-Multi-Mode-MC200CM/dp/B003AVRLZI
2 required and a fiber patch lead.
 
If powerline doesn't work, there may be a conduit between the house and the hangar through which a length of Ethernet cable could be pulled with a fish tape by any halfway-competent electrician.

Assuming that the steel hangar is the only Faraday cage (in other words, that the signal is making it out of the house but not into the hangar), another option would be to mount an exterior wireless bridge on the side of the hangar facing the house, and drill a hole through the hangar wall to pass the wires through. Most of them are WiFi to Ethernet, but it's possible to wire them WiFi to Ethernet to WiFi, basically using the outdoor one as a bridge and the indoor one as an AP.

There also are other options, such as an indoor bridge with an outdoor antenna.

Powerline is finicky. In your case, I think the biggest "if" will be whether the hangar is fed by a subpanel. I've never had much luck using powerline across panels. But it's worth a shot. If it works, it'll be the easiest way to do it.

Rich
 
pmanton said:
Thanks all. ... I'm 80 and ain't gonna even try the under the house thing. Do you have ANY idea what kind of critters live under a house in the AZ desert.
Paul
Click to expand...
Hmmm ... rattlesnakes, scorpions, gila monsters, and tarantulas?
 
teejayevans said:
The power line requires both to be on the same feed from the pole, probably the case here, so that would be easier.
Click to expand...

They also have to be on the same leg. If they are on opposite legs it's doubtful that it would work.

And, as someone who has dealt with PLT professionally, try the wires. Unless you don't care about listening to shortwave radio.
 
To run cable under the house, get a remote controlled toy tank and a line of kite string. Use the tank to run the string and the string to run the cable. Yes, it’s laying on the ground, but it will work. With large enough track, this can work in overhead spaces too.
 
Powerline stuff will be here Tomorrow. Plan is to open the packaging carefully so return will be easy, if it doesn't work.

If I have to run cable I guess I'll find a handyman who doesn't mind critters.
 
Rich’s idea has some merit. You could add a wireless AP in bridge mode just outside the hangar pass a wire through and then add another AP inside. You would need two APs, one of them capable external. You would have to get power to the external. That can be done with a PoE injector just inside. Look at the Ubiquity APs. The standard one does internal and external.
 
I tried the tp-link AV2000 Powerline from house to hangar. Even though the hangar is on a sub panel, they functioned well. The wife's sewing & quilt room is on another sub-panel the they showed a weak signal. 2 sub-panels were too much for them. However I'll plug them into a hangar receptacle and make up a patch cable through the wall into her room.
Success!! I'm gonna get lucky :p
 
pmanton said:
I tried the tp-link AV2000 Powerline from house to hangar. Even though the hangar is on a sub panel, they functioned well. The wife's sewing & quilt room is on another sub-panel the they showed a weak signal. 2 sub-panels were too much for them. However I'll plug them into a hangar receptacle and make up a patch cable through the wall into her room.
Success!! I'm gonna get lucky :p
Click to expand...

If that works for you - good enough. If it were me I would look at using outdoor-rated Ethernet cable, running it around the back of the house, then aerial (if necessary) to span the gap between the buildings. Then run it inside or outside around the back of the hangar - whichever is easier. Types with and without a steel messenger wire are available.

I would suggest a wireless bridge such as the ones offered by Ubiquiti - but the distance is so short that they would be overkill (I have a 13-mile link in service at work using Nanostation M5s that works great).

Dave
 
Last edited:
There are a few articles out there on making a passive wifi repeater work. Essentially, you have two antennas and a short piece of coax. You poke one out of your hangar somewhere so it can receive the signal from the house and hang the other end inside your steel building.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top