New laptop and some questtions on wireless at home.

[Jim O'Dell]

Yes, I am watching the GAME, but it's time to feed the dogs, so I'm back here with 3 of the boys while they eat. I got my HP laptop in Tuesday. Played with it some getting used to everything while I waited for the recovery discs to come in. They got here Friday. I wiped the hard drive with the sanitize function in the BIOS, and started the new install this morning. Piece of cake switching to the 64 bit Win 7 Pro. Didn't even have to input the key code as it was already in the disc from HP. But if you need a program to pull a code out of your computer, I can steer you toward a very easy one. Very small program, I put it on a CD, and you run it, not load it, and it instantly pops up the code. Very slick!!.
Spent the rest of the day loading a few programs and a lot of updates. Need to get email set up on it, but it is good to go. Will play with the finger print security and see how I like that.
Now I need to order the replacement RAM. It keeps going up and down in price every few days. Up right now. About 15.00 higher than it's low point in the last 6 weeks. But I'm not in a hurry.
Now the question. I need to add wireless to the house. The hopes are that it will reach through one wall (brick exterior but with 3 tall windows) and out to the shop. I'm looking at this Buffalo unit since the company seems to get pretty high marks for a small company: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002WBV2T8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER I'd prefer to not go very expensive, and in fact was looking at a refurb D-Link unit that is less than 18.00 bucks, but think that may be going too far. This comes loaded with the DD-WRT that so many, even a few here, have recommended to use. Any ideas? Anything in the same price range that would be better? I figure I've blown my wood money on the computer, I might as well get this set up. Might still have to get a repeater down the road to get to the shop, we'll have to see how that goes.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend. The nine runs the Rangers got in the 3rd have pretty well set me right. :D Jim.

[Bryan Morgan]

Buffalo is a good brand. A lot of it is made in Japan. We ran Buffalo wireless stuff at one of our locations for a few years before we switched it out for Cisco business stuff. That one has external antennas so you can always replace them with directionals and point them at your shop. DDWRT will allow you to play with the power a little bit too. I would avoid the D-link....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jim,

I just purchased and installed a Belkin N750 DB. It works well and was a painless install. Now I am using the laptop while the router and main computer are downstairs in the basement. I bought it at Costco for $79 IIRC.

[Curt Harms]

A thought on the shop. I know there was a related thread a few weeks/months ago but don't recall the consensus. If I had a remote shop that was too far for WiFi or masonry construction I'd look into a powerline solution, maybe call the hardware vendor. I know block construction and WiFi signals don't love one another, don't know about brick. I'm not sure how a subpanel would figure into a powerline networking setup if you had one. Get it from Amazon and if it doesn't work with minimal tweaking send it back.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_13/190-8899260-0395354?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=powerline+networking&sprefix=powerline+net

Edit: Tom's hardware wasn't real impressed with wireline networking. It seems to work but isn't as fast as WiFi. It still seems like a viable solution in certain situations -- as long as your neighbors are not ham radio enthuasiasts.


http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Powerline-Networking-Test,review-1333.html

(http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_13/190-8899260-0395354?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=powerline+networking&sprefix=powerline+net)

[Jim O'Dell]

Curt, I saw that thread, and even posted in it, but my shop is on a separate service. I do have one line from the house that runs a flood light to that part of the back yard, but who knows if I could get on the same leg of the service to make that work. I think the wireless will be an easier solution.
Ken, I'll look that unit up. I guess what would be ideal is to have one I could wire external antennas up with...it wouldn't be too hard to run extensions, if that is a possibility, to the outside of the house. Jim.

[Jerome Stanek]

You could make a cantenna for not much and while you get the parts you can enjoy the Pringles.

[Jim O'Dell]

Please tell me more about the cantenna construction. Jim.

[Myk Rian]

Nothing bad about D-link equipment. That's all I have EVER used, and never had a problem.
My router is in the basement, and I'm in the garage typing this. Router is a G model, laptop has D-link N USB wireless. I connect at 54meg. I plan on getting a D-link N router soon.
Take a look at the D-link DIR-655 router. That's what I'll get.

[Bryan Morgan]

Please tell me more about the cantenna construction. Jim.

Originally made for war driving...

http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/blog/2001/07/antenna_on_the_cheap_er_chip.html

http://www.cantenna.com/

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

[Myk Rian]

Originally made for war driving...
Except they're too directional to be effective for that.

[Curt Harms]

Curt, I saw that thread, and even posted in it, but my shop is on a separate service. I do have one line from the house that runs a flood light to that part of the back yard, but who knows if I could get on the same leg of the service to make that work. I think the wireless will be an easier solution.
Ken, I'll look that unit up. I guess what would be ideal is to have one I could wire external antennas up with...it wouldn't be too hard to run extensions, if that is a possibility, to the outside of the house. Jim.

I'm getting outside the area where I even think I know what I'm talking about but if both services are fed by the same transformer, powerline networking may still work. I did some googling after posting and one source said the poweline network signal will cover the entire system to the transformer. Hence the need for encryption in situations like mine. I'm in a townhouse community where one transformer feeds many homes. Without encryption we'd have a neighborhood LAN whether we knew it or not. WiFi will likely be easier if you can figure out a way to make it work.

[Jim O'Dell]

Hmmm. Interesting Curt. I'll look into it further. Jim.

[Lee Schierer]

You don't say how far your shop is from the house. If you have an existing router you should be able to run a CAT 5 cable out to your shop or about 300 feet. You can plug in another router there with wireless capability. I recently installed a Cisco Linksys E1200 router with wireless and I can easily connect 30 feet away with my Blackberry. Installation was toatally automated with the disk they provide and took less than 10 minutes.

[Jim O'Dell]

I'd run Cat5 in a heartbeat, but it would not be easy. In fact if that was the only way to do it, I wouldn't. Shop is only 120 feet or so from the room where the current router is, but I'd have to move the router to an inside wall to get a Cat 5 to it. (outside wall, insulation. Tried before, no go.) So if I can't do it with wireless, I'll do without. I need to look into the A/C power-ethernet adapters to see if they will work since the shop is on a different service. I thought it had to be on the same leg of power to work. But will check again. Jim.

[Jerome Stanek]

Can you run the cat 5 into an attic or into a basement or crawl space and then to the router. My router is about 150 feet from my house to the shop and if my shop over head door is open I can get a good signal but my shop is a steel sided pole building with a steel over head door so essentially a Faraday cage.

[Curt Harms]

I'd run Cat5 in a heartbeat, but it would not be easy. In fact if that was the only way to do it, I wouldn't. Shop is only 120 feet or so from the room where the current router is, but I'd have to move the router to an inside wall to get a Cat 5 to it. (outside wall, insulation. Tried before, no go.) So if I can't do it with wireless, I'll do without. I need to look into the A/C power-ethernet adapters to see if they will work since the shop is on a different service. I thought it had to be on the same leg of power to work. But will check again. Jim.

After a previous post I got curious and spent some time with auntie Google. I found some interesting sites but didn't bookmark them. One firm sold a little box that mounts on the side of the service panel. It has 3 wires; black, red and blue. To use it you put the black wire in any circuit breaker on one leg and put the red wire in any breaker on the other leg. For single phase installations you don't use the blue wire. That's how they get around the separate leg issue. Another vendor had what appeared to be a well-documented paper that said their device was designed to not require a bridge or whatever it's called. I don't know enough to say what's a crock or what's not. If you choose to go that route, make sure you can return the hardware if it isn't an easy reliable installation. This topic has gotten my attention because a family member has a house that is not WiFi friendly. Right now their needs are modest but if they wanted to expand their network WiFi would be difficult.