extending wireless range

Message

alfio · #1 Post by **alfio** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:15 pm

hi all

quick question on possibly extending the wireless range of my home network. we are housesitting a large house and my wireless router is not powerful enough to reach both ends of the house. now, don't get me wrong, the house *isn't* a mansion or anything. it's just got lots of walls between the house and those must be making it difficult to reach the other parts of the house (right now it's registering at 20%)

anyhow, my question is whether there is anything that can be done about this. running wires is not an option. do those famous linksys antennas really extend the range of the routers? i don't want to spend too much on this 'cause we are only going to be here for a few months but i'd really appreciate ideas on this. thanks

a

JHEM · #2 Post by **JHEM** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:30 pm

Get a WiFi repeater.

Check eBay.

Regards,

James

PDX28 · #3 Post by **PDX28** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:29 pm

If you have a Linksys router you can also try to flash the firmware like the dd-wrt one http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php

There is an option in the wireless settings where you can increase the transmission power of the router but be careful, don't set it too high.

DIGITALgimpus · #4 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:49 am

Should note that WiFi repeaters can have compatibility problems with many routers. WDS is a better approach, but isn't supported by many routers.

mhca · #5 Post by **mhca** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 2:00 pm

PDX28 wrote:There is an option in the wireless settings where you can increase the transmission power of the router but be careful, don't set it too high.

What is there to be careful about? What will happen by having it too high?

I have had ours set to 84 mW for a long time which is a lot higher than the default setting. (Linksys WRT54G v. 2.0)

#6 Post by **Kyocera** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:09 pm

The only thing I could think of would be more power consumption which equals more heat at the router, and routers (at least the ones I deal with) will generate a lot of heat and need good ventilation or premature failure and intermittant lockups can occur.

DIGITALgimpus · #7 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:49 pm

Should also note the disclaimer: it may be illegal depending on where you are. And can cause interference with other electronics.

If your WiFi signal were to interfere with someone using a cordless phone on the same 2.4GHz spectrum during a 911 call... you could possibly be liable.

alfio · #8 Post by **alfio** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:30 pm

mhca wrote:
What is there to be careful about? What will happen by having it too high?

I have had ours set to 84 mW for a long time which is a lot higher than the default setting. (Linksys WRT54G v. 2.0)

i have a WRK54G, can i turn it up? TIA

a

PDX28 · #9 Post by **PDX28** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:30 pm

Around 80 mW shouldn't be a problem at all but you can go up all the way to 251 mW which will definitely cause some serious overheating, unless you have some active cooling for the router.

PDX28 · #10 Post by **PDX28** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:37 pm

little a wrote: i have a WRK54G, can i turn it up? TIA

Doesn't look like you can since it is a stripped-down version of the WRT54g and has a different chipset, which probably doesn't support a third-party firmware. You might want to look on Ebay. They should be available pretty cheap.

extending wireless range

extending wireless range

Who is online