Free Wi-Fi Only reaches outside of building, not far enough...

[Panther5150]

Here is the situation. The city I live in offers free Wi-Fi down a corridor that touches the building I work inside. I am too deep in the building to get anymore than 1-2 bars with limited, infrequent connectivity.

I have access to an office where there is a full signal (ie to place a small piece of equipment). My office is about 30 yards from where I could place this equipment with about 5 walls in between.

My PC is a 2005 dell inspiron with the built-in antennae and card.

Question:

Is there some kind of receiver that could receive this free signal, and boost it to my PC inside the building? What items would specifically work? How do I boost that specific signal and not others in the area?

Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated. I would love to draw in this free wi-fi signal and 2 bars has not been sufficient to even browse the internet.

Thanks!

Trevor

[umdivx]

The only reliable why I know of is through repeaters or WDS enabled access points. However either of them at times require the broadcasting AP to have some configuration as well.

You could try getting a repeater or setting up a WRT based access point and installing open source firmware like DD-WRT firmware and seeing if you can repeate the broadcast that way.

- Josh

[gigawatt]

Depending on what your office situation is like, you could combine this antenna (http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?products_id=351&osCsid=91549fe67f34cdd26d1097bde5a3982f) with this 200 mW client bridge (http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=31&osCsid=91549fe67f34cdd26d1097bde5a3982f)

Mount the antenna on a wall pointed towards the street where the city's access is and get a N type to RP-TNC adapter, plug the antenna into the bridge, and the bridge's ethernet into your laptop, PC, or network. Would cost about $150 when all is said and done.

-M@

[umdivx]

Depending on what your office situation is like, you could combine this antenna (http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?products_id=351&osCsid=91549fe67f34cdd26d1097bde5a3982f) with this 200 mW client bridge (http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=31&osCsid=91549fe67f34cdd26d1097bde5a3982f)

Mount the antenna on a wall pointed towards the street where the city's access is and get a N type to RP-TNC adapter, plug the antenna into the bridge, and the bridge's ethernet into your laptop, PC, or network. Would cost about $150 when all is said and done.

-M@

the power would also need to be boosted on the other end to make it work, you can increase the receive with that setup, but the sending wouldn't be increased.

- Josh

[Panther5150]

I am not techy enough to fully comprehend the first solution. The second involves an installation which I would not be able to do. I can place a box/antenna in a remote location in their office but I cannot go wiring things into place. If I set my laptop next to a window, i would get a full signal. When I set my laptop in my office, I get two bars. I have no way to manipulate the source, it is from the city and they already said they would not boost or direct the signal any more then they have already done. Does that clarify things? I apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area. While I am handy in certain areas, the wi-fi networking lingo has completely passed me by as I have never had a need to learn more about it.

Thanks again for you attempts to assist me, I am hoping there is a solution that entails placing a certain box at point a) and me using my laptop at point b).

[gigawatt]

Not true. The antenna mentioned is directional, so rather than receiving signals from all over the place, it is only receive signal from the general direction of the transmitting antenna. If he is receiving 2 bars with just a laptop antenna, this will definatly vastly improve signal strength on his end.

-M@

How much are you willing to spend? They do make non WDS repeaters...though they're not that great. I'm afraid there's no "magic bullet" for this one....unless you want to spend aboutr $300 or so


Edited by M/Q: Please just edit your post rather than start a new one if there are no more recent ones. Thanks it saves electrons. 8-)

[M/Q]

Josh, you have to look at it from a system stand point. Increasing any factor will help the overall performance of the system. Using a better antenna at one end of the link will help reception and transmission quality of that device as well as increase the SOM of the entire link. You can see that mathematically if you run the SOM calcs.

Trevor, we need a bit more information from you. First are there any other wireless networks on your floor? If so, how many and what channels are they on? There is one approach you can attempt to possibly help. There are wireless devices that will act as repeaters. They have the ability to capture the signal from the remote location and rebroadcast it. There are some problems with that and it should only be used as a last resort. But, in your case it seems that you are just about there.

You can get a consumer grade access point, not wireless router now, but an access point. Then you configure it to act as a repeater. Bring the device to the window along with your notebook and see if it captures the remote site's signal and you can get the repeated signal from the access point on your notebook. If that works then you just keep moving back toward your office and see if you still have a link. If not you have some more options and one would be to add a higher gain antenna to the AP to see if it can reach your office.

If that does not work, then you can get a different wireless adapter for your notebook or a USB wireless device that has a better antenna on it. Then with the access point at the window, better antenna for the access point, and a better wireless client adapter possible with an external antenna for your computer in the office, you might get a signal. I have just ran through several scenarios and you will just have to test them one at a time to see how drastic you have to get.

[Panther5150]

I will give these ideas a shot and see what I come up with. Thanks for all the reponses, it is much appreciated.