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Wifi repeater/extender questions

My son rushed through setup on the repeater. Missed a detail but he fixed it.

Now the repeater doubles the signal strength on the second floor. I am not sure the error.
But, he fixed it.

The fiber optic cable heads into a pre-existing hole the wire telephone once used. That's in the corner of the living room. We don't want any more holes in the house.
Moving the router would put it in a narrowish central hallway. The cement staircase in the center of the house would block out signal in other parts. There is a heap of material in that structure. It would also run fiber optic cable across a room or the front porch.
 
8enotto said:
My son rushed through setup on the repeater. Missed a detail but he fixed it.

Now the repeater doubles the signal strength on the second floor. I am not sure the error.
But, he fixed it.

The fiber optic cable heads into a pre-existing hole the wire telephone once used. That's in the corner of the living room. We don't want any more holes in the house.
Moving the router would put it in a narrowish central hallway. The cement staircase in the center of the house would block out signal in other parts. There is a heap of material in that structure. It would also run fiber optic cable across a room or the front porch.
Click to expand...
Yes, definitely a different sort of place. I can get anywhere with a drill! Good you got the repeater properly repeating.
 
Getting wi-fi working in a difficult house has been one of my ongoing technical nightmares. The technology is much better these days. At least it can be made to work.

I was talking to a guy who used to do custom, professional wifi installs for those who could afford it. He made good money. He used expensive, professional level equipment and wired in the best locations for the router with network cable. He use the junk the rest of have to make do with from the retail appliance shop.

I remember when I bought a Linksys wifi router. I thought it would be good because the brand was owned by Cisco. It was no better than the rest of them. Hopes dashed.
 
Then there is also the wifi aerial scam. I saw a lot of devices with aerials that were twice the length of others. With aerials, rule of thumb is bigger is better, add long as they are a proper multiple of the signal frequency. So I didn't buy the device with the half as long aerials.

I accidentally broke one of the long aerials and saw what was inside. That's right, a half length aerial with the top half just useless plastic that gets in the way.
 
8enotto said:
My son rushed through setup on the repeater. Missed a detail but he fixed it.

Now the repeater doubles the signal strength on the second floor. I am not sure the error.
But, he fixed it.
Click to expand...
Nice. That probably solves your problem. Fingers crossed.
 
a_unique_person said:
Then there is also the wifi aerial scam. I saw a lot of devices with aerials that were twice the length of others. With aerials, rule of thumb is bigger is better, add long as they are a proper multiple of the signal frequency. So I didn't buy the device with the half as long aerials.

I accidentally broke one of the long aerials and saw what was inside. That's right, a half length aerial with the top half just useless plastic that gets in the way.
Click to expand...
My experience with this stuff is obsolete and steam powered, but as I seem to recall, the higher the frequency (and wifi signals are pretty high) the less important aerial length is compared to matching wavelength. I don't even know what's inside that little blob on the roof of my car that drags in FM from way far away, but back in the day, when car antennas were straight pieces of metal, there was a reason they were supposed to be 30 inches long.
 
bruto said:
My experience with this stuff is obsolete and steam powered, but as I seem to recall, the higher the frequency (and wifi signals are pretty high) the less important aerial length is compared to matching wavelength. I don't even know what's inside that little blob on the roof of my car that drags in FM from way far away, but back in the day, when car antennas were straight pieces of metal, there was a reason they were supposed to be 30 inches long.
Click to expand...
Whip aerials usually aim to be a quarter of the wavelength they're meant to receive. They selectively absorb the intended radio frequency most efficiently. If that's inconveniently long, you can use a shorter whip with a small inductive coil added in to correct the mis-match, or make the whole antenna a short helix ("rubber duck" aerials are this type) at the cost of a bit less gain (doesn't receive quite so much signal).

Beyond that it's all magic and far surpasses me.
 
I like the small, barely notable stuff to cut back on visual clutter. A wall wart repeater seems to be doing quite well, the router is on a table lower floor about a yard from outlets. It keeps that unclurttered look without wires or huge devices being really prominent. It's a pseudo colonial style house with vintage and handmade light fixtures in place and the modern stuff kept discrete or downplayed.

She even insisted on woodgrain on the alu frames of the windows/sliding doors. Low maintaince and it looks good.
The few iron framed windows require paint.
 
bruto said:
My experience with this stuff is obsolete and steam powered, but as I seem to recall, the higher the frequency (and wifi signals are pretty high) the less important aerial length is compared to matching wavelength. I don't even know what's inside that little blob on the roof of my car that drags in FM from way far away, but back in the day, when car antennas were straight pieces of metal, there was a reason they were supposed to be 30 inches long.
Click to expand...
The little blob on the roof, is most likely a phased array, basically just a fancy, fractal, pattern etched in copper.

Loads of tiny little aerials all gathering a part of the signal.

The fractal arrays in modern mobile phones are a joy to behold.

en.wikipedia.org

Fractal antenna - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
This thing is deceptive. I knew the modem was off but my TV was pulling a strong signal from the repeater. Sadly it was a null signal as there was nothing to repeat.
But it looked good on screen.

It uses the same name as the modem plus an EXT suffix. Same password too. Practically sets all that itself.
Darn thing is pretty slick now it's dialed in.


Success, the TP link thing is good.
 
Well, the thing works and well, best part is it's invisible as far as power down and restart go. It just comes back up perfectly.

No signal drops, no weirdness at all. We forgot it's there actually. Currently four devices on it upstairs.

I can recomend this unit as useful.
 
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