Wireless extension

[Duke{CLR}]

My wireless router is in my basement on one side of my house, moving it would be a bit of a pain. The signal strength in our bedroom and on the front porch is really weak. What is the simplest way to fist his issue.

[Apache Warrior]

I ran a cable under my house to my son's room, in the middle of the house, and added a wireless access point and a switch.

http://www.linksys.com/en-apac/products/accesspoints
This way I have wireless throughout the house and the switch allows him to have his computer and Xbox 360 hardwired.
Apache

[Duke{CLR}]

So I'm looking for an access point. I guess I could use one of the cat 6 cables I wired and connect that to the router but would it have the same connection information? the SSID and the Password?

[{CLR} Cobalt]

The router info never changes. Before you do all that, you might get on YouTube and look into extending the antennae. There are ways to make your own with more distance available from what I remember. Didnt look too hard either. A bigger antennae always seems to help.

[Duke{CLR}]

The router info never changes. Before you do all that, you might get on YouTube and look into extending the antennae. There are ways to make your own with more distance available from what I remember. Didnt look too hard either. A bigger antennae always seems to help.

So size matters I guess.

[K PhaNTOM]

So size matters I guess.

I heard innuendo so I came running.

[juneau]

Why did you put your router in the basement?

Apache is correct in his answer.

[Sirex]

Yeah a wired access point will do better than a repeater.
If the repeater has a weak signal, so will all the connected devices.

If your doing antenna work there is quick fixes like parabolic relectors etc.
But ideally you want an antenna thats 1/2 the wave length of the freq of your wireless.
Tonne of calculators out there.
If your looking to direct your signal in anyway, in a specific direction, up down etc
Look into making a 3 element yagi style, at 2.4 they are small, good signal gain on that but is very fine in direction, think tv antenna.

[NateTheBrewer]

Have done this in several places. Here is an example of the current setup. All AP's are just Linksys routers with the neccessary functions disabled to make them simple AP's. Keep in mind that WiFi signals 'mushroom' out, or more accurately look like a blast radius. So plan accordingly.

In the front of the house under the living room floor (so in the basement, but serving the first floor living room) I have AP 1. At the back of the house on the 2nd floor, I have AP 2. This allows me to have a good signal throughout the house, and on the front porch, and in the back yard.

Both have their own static IP addresses, DHCP and other routing functions disabled, and are hardwired back to my main switch. Make sure you are connecting them to the network via the LAN ports, not the WAN port.

They should be on non-overlapping channels, like 1, 6, and 11. If you live in a densely populated area, you should take a look at the strength of the networks around you, and select channels that do not overlap with the strongest channels near you. Just make sure the 2 AP's are on separate (non-overlapping) channels.

Give them the same exact SSID, same security standard (WPA2 should do) and the exact same passkey. Doing so allows you to travel between the networks without any sort of 'connecting to a new network'. As your signal from the one AP gets weaker and the other get's stronger, you will automatically start talking to the other. Depending on what you are doing (this even works with streaming video) you will not even notice a single lag or hiccup.

Oh and BTW, disable 'easy wifi', 'one-touch wifi', WPS, etc... This has proven to be EASY to break and leaves a security hole in your network. Besides, you know computers and should not need this 'wizard' of a process to get you joined to your network.

[juneau]

Ever thought about powerline adapters, Duke? Just thought of them as a viable option.

[Cain]

Damn, if he wants to "fist" the issue he is really upset about it!! (Surprised you missed that one KP!)...