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How do extend WiFi signal out to my garden?

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Old 01 March 2017, 10:04 PM
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salsa-king
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Default How do extend WiFi signal out to my garden?

How's best to get a WiFi out in my garden.

I already have a BT Smart Hub thats spoze to have best wifi coverage, but I can't even sit outside my back door and get a decent signal... let along at the top of my garden.

How do you get a signal to go further?


cheers
Old 01 March 2017, 10:13 PM
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Steve001
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There are several BT boosters you can buy, Google is your friend
Old 01 March 2017, 10:25 PM
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I've got bt fibre and tried a bt booster for the same reason but I ended up sending it back. Never worked, tried resetting etc but still didn't work, gave up in the end.
Old 01 March 2017, 10:36 PM
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tony de wonderful
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Got a shed with a power outlet?
Old 01 March 2017, 10:46 PM
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Originally Posted by Steve001
There are several BT boosters you can buy, Google is your friend
done all that, so thought SN will give an easier fix.
Old 01 March 2017, 10:47 PM
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Originally Posted by tony de wonderful
Got a shed with a power outlet?

it will have, are you thinking run a Ethernet cable from the Home Smart Hub and up to the summerhouse?

I read about this, but didn't understand it lol
http://www.broadbandbuyer.com/featur...garden-office/

Last edited by salsa-king; 01 March 2017 at 10:48 PM.
Old 02 March 2017, 06:39 AM
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Powerline it so no cable required
Old 02 March 2017, 07:02 AM
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salsa-king
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what do you mean powerline?
Old 02 March 2017, 07:14 AM
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Originally Posted by salsa-king
what do you mean powerline?
I thought you had Googled the options ?
Powerlines carry the signal thru the houses mains wiring rather then having to run a extra cable to remote points,
you can then add a old router DHCP turned off as an external access point for the interweb.
Old 02 March 2017, 08:03 AM
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Put an ethernet cable in if you're putting down power cable, great for CCTV later.
Old 02 March 2017, 10:16 AM
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Originally Posted by JackClark
Put an ethernet cable in if you're putting down power cable, great for CCTV later.

Well I was thinking he could run a powerline and router if there was a power outlet already in place. Less work than getting a spade out.
Old 02 March 2017, 08:21 PM
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Try putting your wifi router in the attic; less stuff in the way to block the signal (unless you have foil lined sarking membrane or foil insulation).
Old 02 March 2017, 09:19 PM
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There are some fairly hefty range boosters but soldering would be required.
they are tried and tested in 2.4ghz RC drones (illegally) but are originally designed for what your after.
Not sure I'd want to effectively turn my house into a microwave though lol
Old 02 March 2017, 09:28 PM
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I bought a booster from Argos, cost about £14, certainly improved my download speed.
Old 02 March 2017, 09:50 PM
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Where can you buy these point to point links and are they expensive ?
Old 02 March 2017, 09:54 PM
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Do you mean an adaptor ? I've tried one and it didn't work for me
Old 02 March 2017, 10:47 PM
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Amazon Amazon

Got one of these and a 2nd wireless point, works ok, occasional drop outs.
Old 02 March 2017, 11:06 PM
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Originally Posted by ALi-B
Try putting your wifi router in the attic; less stuff in the way to block the signal (unless you have foil lined sarking membrane or foil insulation).
router needs to be near the tv as it's connected to the BT YouView box
Old 03 March 2017, 09:19 AM
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Phil, get THIS KIT. Plug the little one in near your router and one of the WiFi ones in the shed. You can set it to clone your Wifi settings. Put another by the back door.

I have a house with two stone buildings 30m away and I have one in each - works perfectly and seamlessly.
Old 03 March 2017, 02:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Puff The Magic Wagon!
Phil, get THIS KIT. Plug the little one in near your router and one of the WiFi ones in the shed. You can set it to clone your Wifi settings. Put another by the back door.

I have a house with two stone buildings 30m away and I have one in each - works perfectly and seamlessly.
Looks good James.
Is it boosting the Wi-Fi between the plugged in adaptors?
Without sounding stupid... Does it matter of the socket in the summer house isn't off the ring main of the house.
As the summer house power comes in from the garage which has it's own fuse board. Of course the power to the garage does come from the main feed to the house.
Does that make sense?
Old 03 March 2017, 09:49 PM
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Its providing a Wifi point at each socket you plug in. Like a cell phone, more masts, better coverage.

In my setup, the barn house is on a separate fuse board/meter and works absolutely fine. Garage also has separate fuse board.
Old 04 March 2017, 07:22 AM
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^^^ that's what I need. thanks
Old 04 March 2017, 07:26 PM
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The device u receiving wifi on makes a lot of difference to range
Old 04 March 2017, 08:01 PM
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I've got the same TP-link kit as Puff, and use it to get Wifi in the log cabin / office + garage. It's an excellent bit of kit once it's set up (I've got two more power plug adaptors that don't do wifi for my Raspberry PIs etc).

The only thing I'd say is try to set it up with a different encryption key than what it comes with as standard, as I'm not sure how far "downstream" the signals leak in the electricity network. Reasonably easy to do with the provided software.
Old 04 March 2017, 08:02 PM
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Oh should mention, my garage has its own fuse board, and there are two RCDs and about 50m of cable between the TP links furthest apart, and it works fine.
Old 04 March 2017, 08:20 PM
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so the PLUG-IN in your Log Cabin.. is that using the power from the plug to work, or getting a signal through the power cable.... or is it picking up on the WiFi signal being sent from the other PLUG-IN in the house (which gets its signal from the Main Plug-IN wired to the router?)
Old 05 March 2017, 09:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Puff The Magic Wagon!
Phil, get THIS KIT. Plug the little one in near your router and one of the WiFi ones in the shed. You can set it to clone your Wifi settings. Put another by the back door.

I have a house with two stone buildings 30m away and I have one in each - works perfectly and seamlessly.
going to pick this up today.. same isn't it??

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computi...27162-pdt.html
Old 05 March 2017, 10:23 AM
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Yeah, that's it

As Henrik says, minimum you should do is change the admin password as its quite a simple one. Not an issue for me I should think as 2/3 mile as crow flies to nearest neighbour but still done.
Old 05 March 2017, 10:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Puff The Magic Wagon!
Yeah, that's it

As Henrik says, minimum you should do is change the admin password as its quite a simple one. Not an issue for me I should think as 2/3 mile as crow flies to nearest neighbour but still done.

Off to town now.

How far will the WiFi signal reach using the plugs?... Without using the faster wired Ethernet connection?
Old 05 March 2017, 10:45 AM
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So I have the following setup:

Close to the Internet router:
1 x Powerline adaptor (the smaller of the two types, which doesn't do wifi) connected to a socket close to my Virgin Media router. I have a cable connected from the router to the powerline adaptor (a normal network cable).
This adaptor does not extend the wifi as such, it just means that my power cables also now carry the network signal (for other power line adaptors to pick up).


In the log cabin:
1 x Powerline adaptor with Wifi. This is plugged in to the mains power, and serves wifi. It also has a network port, which I've connected to a switch, but that's non-important for your use case.


I also have a further 2x non wifi powerline adaptors scattered around the house for various purposes (I'm a bit of a nerd, sorry...).



The powerline kit is supposed to support auto pairing to wifi etc, but I never got this working, so I used a browser to connect to the web interface of the wifi extender and set the network name and password to exactly the same as I have on my internet router. This was moderately tricky - I had to:

1. Set my laptop to NOT use dhcp on the ethernet connection (this is the wired connection, basically)
2. Configure the ethernet connection to use:
IP address: 192.168.1.5
Network mask: 255.255.255.0
No default gateway
3. Once you've set your network up like that, open a browser and surf to http://192.168.1.1 (I seem to recall it was this address, but it will say on the box or wifi extender).
4. In the web interface, configure the network SSID (name) and password. The admin password for the wifi extender is printed on the actual dongle itself, but it's on the power socket side, so write this down before plugging it in.

I think after this, it should work. I should also say that it's more than 2 years since I set this up, and my memory is slightly hazy. The extender might already have a wifi network configured, and you might be able to connect to that to set the network name and SSID, for example, without having to mess around with the ethernet cable (steps 1 + 2 above), but I can't remember for sure.



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