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Forum Discussion
AC1200 Range Extender not extended enough.
I live in the mountains (lots or trees) and have 2 vacation rentals. One (the ND Cabin) about 150 feet from my house and the other (the SS Cabin) about 440 feet from my house. I have a Linksys WRT54G2 router. I bought a Netgear AC1200 extender and placed it about 150 feet away from my home next to the ND Cabin with a signal strength of "Good". The signal at the SS Cabin is not quite enough. There are a few trees between the extender and the SS Cabin. I can get a weak signal at the SS Cabin if I am outside but not on the inside. I tried moving the extender farther away from my house and closer to the SS Cabin but the signal at the extender went to "Fair". My knowledge of WiFi is limited. Can someone help on what to do or buy to get GOOD WiFi at my house plus at both cabins? Is there a way to have separate logins at each cabin? I'll buy all new equipment if I have to.
6 Replies
IMO, for your scenario, good wifi would include purchasing the following, Range Extenders won't cut it:
- One unmanaged Gigabit switch.
- Two runs of outdoor STP CAT6 Ethernet cable buried, (First run between house and ND Cabin 150 ft away - plugs into home router).
- One UTP CAT 6 cable that can connect AP1 in ND cabin to unmanaged switch. (Length dependant on distance from unmanaged switch to AP1.
- Second run would be, between ND cabin and SS cabin - cable buried (it would have to be less than 300 (328 max) feet between SS Cabin and ND Cabin)
(Second run of cable between the two cabins is to compensate for the distance between SS Cabin and your home - 450 ft is too far).
Connect first run of cable between your home router and the unmanaged switch you just purchased, which will be housed in ND Cabin.
Connect second cable between both cabins on to the newly purchased unmanaged switch, which is housed in ND Cabin.
Purchase two routers that can be configured as Access Points, which would be housed in both cabins - plugged into .
Purchase an additional router to upgrade the Linksys in your home. All new routers should have 1000Mb Ethernet ports.
Configure new Cabin routers as Access Points.
Connect AP1 in ND cabin using short CAT6 UTP cable to the unmanaged switch.
Connect AP2 in SS cabin to exposed ethernet connector. (long cable that was run between the two cabins).
At this point, if everything is connected and configured correctly, you should have wifi between all buildings. The wifi range will be sufficient for inside cabin, and, I would suspect, some outdoor wifi also.
You should be able to configure your Access Points for Guest Access also (using a password, per device, that you can manage, which is different from your own passphrase) and your own SSID with a different passphrase, You can put the same SSID's on the routers, so that you can connect to the different Access Points, if you want to. I doubt you will be able to roam, as the distance is too great.
I would test complete set up before running and burying.
Proper grounding will be required, for outdoor cabling / equipment. This is what I would do, in your situation.
Thanks for the prompt responce.
The ND cabin property is connected to my home property but the SS cabin property is across and down the street a little bit so running underground cable is out of the question. Also, the SS cabin is roughly 440 feet from both my home and the ND cabin. Any further suggestions for that situation?
Sounds like you may need a powered outdoor antenna to provide Wi-Fi coverage to the far cabin
