Wireless Home Conundrum

[manonlaco]

Greetings:

I live in a single story home which was built in the early 1950. The exterior walls are framed with 2x wood studs, clad with lath and finished with stucco siding. Interior finishes consists of lath and plaster & drywall in select locations. The structure has been added onto twice, both times in the late 1950’s using similar construction practices. I have an exterior garage, with a 20ft x 20ft footprint, of original construction, located approximately 5 feet from an exterior wall of one of the additions (see attached plan view of residence and location of each AP).

Background:

I’m utilizing a wireless router/ access point to provide internet access inside of my house. It works reasonably well and coverage is fairly consistent throughout all of the original rooms and two additions. Wireless coverage outside of my house, in the backyard, the front yard and detached garage is dismal.

To address these gaps in coverage, I’ve tried the following solutions with varying success.

• To address the gap in coverage in the front yard, I installed a TL-WR1043ND in the front closet which is resting against an exterior wall. I’ve ran Category 5 networking cable (Cat5e, I believe) from the RT-AC68U to the front closet. I disabled DHCP on the TL-WR1043ND and configured the wireless to run on a different 2.4 GHz channel than the one being used on the RT-AC68U. Despite the exterior wall, this configuration reliably provides wireless access to the front yard. I consider this a success.
  
• To address the gap in coverage in the garage and back yard, I needed to determine how to run cable between the house and the garage in an unobtrusive manor (not draping it from the roof or other ridiculous ideas). Initially, I installed a TP-Link Powerline Network to provide connectivity to a DIR-655 wireless router placed in the detached garage. This connection proved spotty and inconsistent, particularly when large AC motors where running (see washing machine, AC compressor).
  
• I removed the Powerline Network and ran a 200’ Category 5 networking cable (Cat5e) along the top of the fence which boarders my property and in through the rear of the garage to the DIR-655. I placed the DIR-655 right above the top of the roll up aluminum garage door on the interior face of the 4x header. I’ve tested the quality of the DIR-655 wired connection via LAN Speed Test and it is gigabit. (see attached picture for location of DIR-655)

My dilemma:

The wireless signal inside of the garage appears to be high quality, but when testing the actual speed via speedtest or attempting to download a large file through this connection, I have inconsistent results. Depending on where I am standing within the garage, the signal quality varies significantly.

Questions:

• How does the router placement in immediate proximity to the garage door impact the quality of the wireless signal?
  
• Would moving the router a rafter above the garage door, away from the 1950’s walls and aluminum garage door improve signal quality?
  
• How does the orientation of the three antennas impact the signal quality?
• I’ve modified the DIR-655 router to improve airflow and reduce heat using the following DIY method: http://www.markalway.com/dlink_router/
• Might the proximity of the fan motor inside the router casing have a negative impact of the wireless signal quality of the DIR-655?
• Could replacing the DIR-655 with a new unit, say the TL-WR1043ND solve my problems, without any further configuration changes?

Thanks in advance for your advice and insight.

 

[azazel1024]

Considering the very short distance between the garage and the house, I'd just string the wire. Its 5ft hanging. Get outdoor rated cat5e/6 that is black. Odds are, after a couple of weeks, you'll never notice it.

Or, even though it is pavement, get the same kind of wire and lay it on the ground. Get one of those rubber conduit strips to go over top of it and, again, you'll probably not really notice it after a couple of weeks, especially if you can get one vaguely close to the color of the pavement.

For wifi coverage outside, where do you need coverage? Front yard? backyard? both? Sounds like in the garage is a priority.

What is the exterior material of the garage. I didn't notice that within your post. Aluminum siding?

If non-aluminum siding I'd consider getting something like a TP-Link WNDR3600. Stick it in the garage on the rear side (side toward the house). Get 1 meter long pigtails/coax RP-SMA extensions. Drill small holes at the top of the garage ceiling underneath the eves of the roof and run the pigtails outside and mount the antennas to them with some rope caulk to seal the hole and hold them in place. Make sure the hole is just a fraction of an inch bigger than the antenna bases.

That'll deffinitely give you awesome coverage outside. It should give you pretty decent coverage inside of the garage too, so long as it is not aluminum siding on the garage. If it is, run a 2nd AP inside of the garage centrally located on the ceiling between garage doors so that when they are open, it doesn't "shadow" the antennas if possible.

Is the fence metal? If so, there's your problem (probably). Cat5e is pretty good, but 200ft is getting up near the top part of the spec, and running along (especially in and out, if it is) of something like a chain link fence is giving lots of opportunity to increase cross talk, induce impedence. Other options are, crappy wiring to start with. Is it outdoor rated? If so, is it regular copper core wiring, or is it CCA (copper clad aluminum)?

The location of the fan withing the DIR-655 could possibly be impacting things. The aluminum garage doors can DEFFINITELY be causing an issue. They'll reflect the signal and that can be causing problems. If you are happy enough with your current setup (despite my advice), I'd start with disabling the fan temporarily. Then I'd move on to temporarily relocating the DIR-655 within the garage to a position close to the back corner nearer the rest of your backyard and see what kind of results you get.

 

[stevech]

Try HomePlug or other IP over power wiring to get the LAN into the garage.