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Forum Discussion
Range extension using AC?
Hello. I'm hoping someone here can help me. I have wifi in my house. My Barn is 300 feet away. I have central metering so the barn and house electrical are essentially the same. Is there an AC range extender available that will extend my wifi to the barn or allow me to use my Internet in the barn? I also have 500 feet of cat5 cable, would a wired connection work? And what gear would I need?
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for reading.
4 Replies
300 feet might be pushing wifi, LAN may work.
If the barn is on the same mains circuit, then powerline is an option, but there too that is one long run.
- Would an AC signal travel through 2 circuit breakers? The Guy from Netflix doesn't think it would, but I have a hard time believing that. A breaker doesn't change anything in my opinion, it let's electricity flow through it until it senses a load too high for it to handle. I have enough cat 5 line to run from house to barn but digging up my lawn to bury it is no fun. But buying expensive gear and finding out it doesn't work is no fun either.
I don't know what you mean by "AC signal". Powerline doesn't send AC. It just uses the mains cabling.
I can understand what Netflix people tell you, but they sell movies, not network connections. I don't sell networks either, but have used powerline through two circuit breakers. It works. But the performance is not as good as on a circuit that does not cross circuit breakers.
A pair of powerline plugs probably costs a lot less than digging a trench or the cost of the LAN cable. At $40 up, they are not "expensive gear".
Do you have to dig a trench to test the LAN cable?
