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Wireless Network Between Buildings Update?

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  • Connectivity
  • Wireless Network
Last response: in Wireless Networking
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April 15, 2014 9:42:27 AM

I am asking this in a new thread as the older ones that I found were older and not exactly what I was looking for.
At our church, we have two buildings separated by a parking lot. The two buildings are 104' apart. We have a wireless access point in a room in the church on the side facing the gym. Acceptable wireless connectivity is obtainable in the gym (A), But we have a room (B) on the second floor of the gym on the side away from the church in which the wireless connectivity is just not useable. We have decided to replace the existing router and access point and if it would make a difference, we are going to add a repeater in the gym.

Modem --- Wireless Router ----Cat5-------Access Point | ---104'--- | Gym (A) Room(B)


So, will a repeater make a difference? What brand router/access point/repeater? We need to keep the cost reasonable.

Thanks!

More about : wireless network buildings update

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April 15, 2014 10:39:26 AM

It could make things worse if you are unlucky. "acceptable" may not be enough for a repeater.

What you need to do is place the repeater in the area with the best signal in your gym. It will then repeat the signal to the other area you do not get signal. The issue is the quality and speed of the signal will be at best 1/2 of what the repeater is receiving. The repeater itself will be interfering with the signal from the main building. So if your signal is good enough to tolerate this new interference a repeater will solve your issue.

You need to make sure your AP will connect with a repeater using WDS. You may have to configure the AP to allow the repeater to connect.
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April 15, 2014 11:40:41 AM

Great! Thanks for the response. Any recommendations as to brand? Netgear, DLink, Linsys/Cisco?
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April 15, 2014 12:58:58 PM

They will all likely work about the same. The only one I have seen that I would suspect would work better is hawkings HAW2R1. This one unlike most the other ones uses 1 radio to talk back to the main center and a different radio to talk to the end users machines. By using 2 radios it should no degrade the performance as bad as the ones that just rebroadcast into the same exact channel and radio. I have not used this myself since I generally use outdoor equipment when faced with your issue but other people say it works ok.
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