Wireless routers cascaded, Ethernet in / Wifi out

[Soundguy]

Running Android Netgear WiFi Analytics on my phone, signal strength from the existing repeater drops off as I get farther out from the repeater. Likewise Ookla Speedtest, down to under 1 Mbps. By the time I get behind the cabin, outdoors, signal is low to none.

I would like a fresh signal from a router originating inside the back wall of the cabin, to serve there and to radiate out into my equipment storage area back there and the orchard beyond.

Wired to that location would be best.

 

[Soundguy]

can't change the channel the repeater uses, unless its a dual band repeater, but op can do what he wants

You say that like dual band repeaters are rare or scarce or something.

 

[California]

Wired to that location would be best.

Agreed. I'm planning to make a phantom wire with my Ethernet Over Powerline sender/receiver kit, then at the far end feed signal into an ordinary router to make use of its Wifi radio transmitter.

I want to avoid, if I can, placing overhead or buried Cat5 across the driveway between the buildings. Here's an old photo showing the back window where I have the N-300 repeater. After upgrading my ISP service above 1.5 Mbps, service via the repeater to the cabin didn't improve proportionally.

The cabin is on the left behind the Redwoods in the photo.

 

[MossRoad]

Running Android Netgear WiFi Analytics on my phone, signal strength from the existing repeater drops off as I get farther out from the repeater. Likewise Ookla Speedtest, down to under 1 Mbps. By the time I get behind the cabin, outdoors, signal is low to none.

I would like a fresh signal from a router originating inside the back wall of the cabin, to serve there and to radiate out into my equipment storage area back there and the orchard beyond.

Wow, that is poor strength. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[MossRoad]

Nice composter!

 

[California]

Thanks!

 

[California]

Ok, progress!

After a few more gray hairs I finally figured out that 'cascaded routers' configuration is only needed when the remote router receives signal via wifi.

In contrast I'm using (virtual) Ethernet cable from the principal router out to the remote router. I set up the remote router with fixed IP, DHCP off, channel left at Automatic, normal login security. No cascading features needed.

I now have a remote router in service working properly. Speedtest on my phone shows wifi signal at this remote router at the same speed as a desktop pc at the same remote location. Each of these remote units, the router and the desktop, has its own incoming signal from its own Ethernet over Powerline receiver.

I attached to one of the router's Ethernet ports an old Laserjet 1300 containing a Jetdirect Ethernet interface card, and at another port an Ethernet-to-USB box driving a color laser printer. The desktop pc prints properly through the network to these.

The HP Jetdirect (J6039C) card I have in the Laserjet is the cheapest way to input Ethernet to it. I went on Ebay and found another for the ranch Laserjet 1300, actually two cards for $5.50 including shipping.


Now that I understand the principles involved it will be easy to expand this.


Thanks to everyone for the advice and encouragement. roposetoast:

 

[MossRoad]

HP Jetdirect (J6039C) card...

Man you do like the old stuff! :laughing: We had many of those around our building and remote offices. They were workhorses. The printers would die, but we'd keep those cards. They were like gold to us. Once you set it with an IP address and name, you'd just keep that card at that particular office and swap them into the replacement printers. It was cheaper for us to run a good printer out to the office, swap the card, and bring the dead printer back to the home office where we could work on it in the lab.

Something else to consider, if your remote PCs seem to have network issues, try changing the Speed and Duplex settings from Auto to some locked setting, like 100 no duplex or 10 no duplex. It resolves a lot of issues where the network speed varies for various reasons. Once we upper our network to GB at the desktop, we had many older devices that went nuts. Taking them off Auto and hard coding them to fixed network speeds resolved 99% of the issues.

 

[California]

HP Jetdirect (J6039C) card... Man you do like the old stuff! :laughing:

You would have howled at what I was running at home and ranch up through 2011. The very definition of 'Old School'.

Surely you recognize the HP Laserjet IIp and IIIp. At work I bought one when they were introduced in 1989, for an investigator who needed privacy. Around 1996 I found one in a thrift store for $20, all it needed was a little spring to elevate the feed blade and feed the next sheet. $5 mailorder for the spring and I had a better laser printer than many offices. Over the years I must have had 20 or so IIp's and IIIp's all bought for near nothing. I had them in service for me, for my kids college dorms, and as as gifts for friends. Scanner motor died, no problem, I have several more in the parts box. A couple of years ago there were no longer decent cartridges for these on Ebay and I finally ran out of serviceable used rollers, separator pads etc, so I replaced these with used 2003 Laserjet 1300's. Much faster, otherwise the same thing. I have a modern color laser printer (Samsung) but the elderly Laserjets have always been the cheap-to-run workhorses doing 95% of the printing.

I'm retired so staying one generation behind is cheap and serves me fine. I take the approach that I can play with more toys when I don't pay much for them, latest example is the used routers re-configured as remote Access Points that I described above. Two more examples are in my sig photo, below.

 

[California]

Something else to consider, if your remote PCs seem to have network issues, try changing the Speed and Duplex settings from Auto to some locked setting, like 100 no duplex or 10 no duplex. It resolves a lot of issues where the network speed varies for various reasons. Once we upper our network to GB at the desktop, we had many older devices that went nuts. Taking them off Auto and hard coding them to fixed network speeds resolved 99% of the issues.

Thanks for the tip, I wouldn't have thought of that.

These '500 AV' EoP sets have 100Mbps Ethernet cable ports. This puts a hard limit on how fast data is accepted into the link.

I don't see why they claim 'Up to 500 Mbps over existing electrical lines'.

I don't expect a problem of excess speed.