Public WiFi for Internet and Wireless Router for Private LAN- How?

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George Mulligan

George Mulligan

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Sep 20, 2014
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I am now travelling in an RV, and I need advice on the right components and setup to both connect to a public wireless network and at the same time have my own local wireless network for printer, etc.

My first thought is to have a wireless adaptor on my computer such as this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704133

and then use an RJ45 cable to connect from the computer LAN port to my personal wireless router (Netgear WNR2000).

Will this setup work, and do I need to do anything special with network settings?

Again, the purpose for this is to have a dedicated private network for my peripherals, and also have access to public wifi when I move from place to place.

This is academic, but theoretically if this setup worked, I could also, with a PDA, connect to my personal wireless network and access the internet through the separate wireless adaptor, but of course this would seemingly exercise my computer networking unnecessarily (simpler to connect PDA directly to public wifi). Again, this is academic, only to illustrate the network setup I'm trying to achieve.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
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viewtyjoe

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Jul 28, 2014
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Realistically, you would need to configure your computer connecting to the public networks as the gateway/router for your private network, which is doable, but would necessitate running a Server version of Windows or more likely Linux. If you can do that, then your desired setup should be workable. It's probably a bit more configuration than you want to do, though.
 
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George Mulligan

George Mulligan

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I definitely don't want to go that route if I don't have to. If I didn't want to have internet piped through the computer, though, and I just wanted it to be able to connect to both public wifi (for internet) and private LAN through cable, could that be done without a server setup?
 
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ib2007

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Buy Alfa's R36 + AWUS036H (wireless G longest range card available to date) depending on which firmware is installed on the R36 you can either go with wifi G at 54Mbps as your link to the public wifi hotspot or get the newer shorter range adapter which uses wifi N (i for got what the model number is but should list all compatible adapters you can use with r36) on 2.4ghz band if you are going to access wifi over the public network most likely its more than enough. If you are not streaming or doing any heavy lifting R36 is the easiest to setup as a range extender and rebroadcast signal in your RV so all your wifi devices can use it. It also has a local LAN Ethernet connector so you can plug your wired devices into it as well. I have mine setup with wifi N as local network 150Mbps. Super easy to setup and the device is fairly small. Another option is; If the public hot spot you are trying to access from your RV is not too far, you can buy a cheap router on ebay and flash it with ddwrt firmware on it, given that the router is supported and reconfigure it as a repeater. Typically the second option yields poor wifi performance and a pain to setup but works. PS. if you go with second option go with router with broadcom chipset that is listed as supported on ddwrt's supported device database.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALFA-R36-Portable-Wireless-Router-for-AWUS036H-supports-SuperPass-RTL8187-chip-/380681175541?pt=COMP_EN_Routers&hash=item58a25dc1f5
 
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George Mulligan

George Mulligan

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Sep 20, 2014
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The R36/AWUS036H seems like a great solution. And wouldn't you know it, when doing my research on those components, I found that they are prevalent on RV owner forums!

I'll watch for any other potential solutions, but at least I have a pretty good one already.

Thanks, ib2007!
 
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ib2007

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No problem. I am currently looking into purchasing another one for a workplace. Only one thing I do not like about r36 is the WPS button is panted on, the case feels cheap and the gray paint on the WPS button is easily scratched by a fingernail. Of course that does not affect its performance in any way and still has the crown in my book.
 
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