Um,
How about a high gain antenna (you can purchase them from Fry’s electronics or even on Amazon). If you can place the router, itself, in a good spot and use a high gain antenna, you should be able to connect to another wi-fi system up to half a mile away. It will save on complexity as well as expense for the extra gear and cable. Also, I have seen multi-element beam antennas for Wi-fi and they run about $25 to $40 depending on source. With slightly more than 30 DB gain, and a tight beam width, it shouldn’t be hard to get into said neighbors Wi-Fi even from inside a house.

Btw, I happen to be a ham radio operator as well as the local blind hacker, so I am a bit more familiar with low cost designs when it comes to range extension.

-Eric
From the Central offices of the Technomage Guild, Research and development Dept


On Oct 13, 2019, at 5:50 PM, David Schwartz <newsletters@thetoolwiz.com> wrote:

I have a friend I’m trying to help out and need some info on stuff related to extending WiFi.

Long story short, his internet got cut off and his neighbor says he can hook into his WiFi signal.

The thing is, he’s got a router and a bunch of doohickeys already set up to connect to it.

In an ideal world, I’d run a CAT5 cable from the neighbor’s router to the WAN port on his router and we’d be done with it. But that’s not really an option.

The neighbor’s WiFi signal at his router is too weak to pick up inside the his house. The signal isn’t too bad in the driveway which adjoins the neighbor’s house, tho.

So I’m thinking about getting a range extender with an Ethernet plug on it and plugging it into a plug in the driveway; then getting a powerline ethernt adapter and plugging the two together via a short Ethernet cable.

Range Extender:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L0YLRUW

Powerline Ethernet Adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV600-Powerline-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B00AWRUICG/

The other powerline ethernet adapter would plug in by his router, and I’d run an Ethernet cable from it to his router’s WAN port. (or one of the router ports?)

This uses the extender to receive the neighbor’s WiFi signal, but I’m not connecting to it otherwise. It sends it via the home’s power grid directly to the guy’s router.

Is there any reason this wouldn’t work?

A possibly simpler option is this, which has a repeater and powerline adapter rolled into one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078PH3QBD

The thing is, it’s sort of backwards from what I need.

It’s designed to plug a powerline adapter into the Ethernet port of a router, put the signal onto the powerline, then the other end comes out as a WiFi repeater.

I need the WiFi repeater to connect to the neighbor’s router via WiFi, and have it be the WAN source on the other end with this guy’s router.

I’m open to other options as well, if anybody has any suggestions. (I’m looking into how RVers do this, for example.)

-David Schwartz

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