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Forum Discussion
Metal building wifi
Another remote metal building question.
i live on an acreage. Added a wavlink extender to my network at the house. Works good everywhere across the acreage, good signal, except wifi signal inside metal building is bad. Great outside the building but can’t get through the steel.
so I have an older netgear ac1600 extender that I decided I would put inside the metal shop building. It gets some signal but not great. So I realize the antennas can only pick up signal that’s in the building.
my question, can I take the antennas off and mount them outside and connect with cables? We are talking 1’ or less. NETGEAR extender on inside wall and antennas on outside. That way I would get the good wifi signal from outside and send it through the building.
if this makes sense what cable, fittings, etc would I need?
or is there a simpler way to accomplish my goal?
thanks
warren
40 Replies
What is the actual model number? (from the product label. AC1600 is a marketing term regarding the maximum 'speed')
Is there a window facing the main building?
No. But you could always do 2 extenders.
Put one exterior and run an ethernet cable from that interior to the other extender that you'd put inside.
Or depending on the distance and budget, do it right and get a point to point system that you'd mount on the house and another you'd mount on the metal building. Then you'd run an ethernet cable from the one on the metal building interior and put your access point/extender in there.
I have a wave link extender at the house which has a strong signal outside the metal building. But the NETGEAR extender is on the inside of the building so it can’t get the signal, if I move the NETGEAR outside or open the door there’s a strong signal.
i need a way to get the signal into the building
Oh, forgot, running an Ethernet cable would be costly with concrete and asphalt between house and shop
Thanks for the model number. I see some factors to consider:
- To get a communications inside the metal building, the WiFi antennas must be outside (or inside placed next to a non-metal part of the wall. i.e. cut a hole and glue a piece of plastic over it.)
- If there is a need to have WiFi service inside the building, then there must be WiFi antennas inside.
- The EX6200 has only one set of antennas. They cannot be in both locations at the same time.
- Getting power to a unit outside the building is not trivial.
What about this:
- Purchase an outdoor rated WiFi extender which is powered by Power over Ethernet (PoE). The extender goes outside and the Ethernet cable comes inside and connects to the PoE power supply, and then connects to the EX6200.
- Set up the EX6200 in Access Point mode (page 21 of the User Manual)
So an outside extender will pick up the wifi signal on the outside and the Ethernet cable will take that signal to the ex6200? If I understand correctly, that would be a great option. Can you offer advice on what outside extender I might consider?
sorry I don’t know to much about this, I’m a 75 year old newbie ….ha ha
I have an AX3000 wavlink extender at the house now that is getting my signal to that areas outside.
Maybe something like a wavlink600?
Since you are familiar with Wavlink, that would seem to be a reasonable choice.
Also the manual I have only has 20 pages?
Also the manual I have only has 20 pages?
I think you found the "do more" booklet, not the full manual. Googling EX6200 support site:netgear.com will get you to all the docs. Here's a direct link to the user manual:
- https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/EX6200/EX6200_UM_EN.pdf
Also, I down loaded the complete manual frother EX6200 and found the page you referenced. Looks like I just change a few settings to make it work.
Thanks for your help. Ordered the parts, now see what happens!
Before ordering stuff, do some speed testing. Daisy chaining extenders drops speeds a lot and adds a lot of latency. (usually over 50% reduction each hop with standard single/dual band extenders). Take your extender and run an extension cord outside to use it, then test the speeds on the device connected to it. See what speeds you get and if they're usable for what you want it for. If so, great, use that option. If not, then we'd need to try something else.
Bear with me please, I have and xfinity gateway in the house. I added a wavlink wifi accesses point to it and that access point is delivering signal everywhere on the acreage. Then I put an old netgear extender I had that I used in the past. That extender is wifi and has no cable. I can take it outside the shop and it has a great signal. We were suggesting adding another wifi access point and connect it to the net gear in the shop.
So, I’m confused on what you suggest I take outside?
You have everything correct. Great overview. I'm just recommending before getting another access point, testing the speed of the one you currently have while outdoors. Since it'll be hardwired to the one inside, it'll give you a realistic speed of what you should expect indoors. Connect something to that extender and test the speeds before buying another one.
You want to see what actual speeds you're getting to see if it'll support what you're doing. If you're just streaming music in the building, 10mbps would be fine. If you're planning on streaming a single tv, 30-50mbps would be minimum. If you're setting up a gaming den/streaming room/2nd home for someone that will have multiple devices, then you'd want faster speeds/stability.
I'm just recommending doing some actual speed testing before buying another device.
