Slightly OT Wireless Networks

Have just been through the hoop with this at the new place, and gave up after a while and went back to Cat5 cable. We have two PC's at one end in the offices and another in the workshop about 15 metres away, almost line of sight.

We had a new 2Wire Business Hub 2700HGV supplied at the factory which seemed fine, but there were all sorts of issues with the wireless cards and various PC's, so much so that it got to be a chore 'playing' with the setup. With hub and PC 5ft from each other we couldn't get them to talk.

That 2700 hub is a nice unit, so much so that I have just taken delivery of another for home, £19 or so on ebay plus post.

Although it is labelled as a business hub it works fine on home supplies, we are getting just over 7mb feed now.

Unless you really 'have' to have wireless, I'd go back to cable.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Try moving the HomeHub if you can, different orientations or positions may help.

You can buy wireless repeater boxes, which you could place near a suitable window. But its not a cheap solution.

If you could find a way to do it, I'd run ethernet cable from the house to the workshop. It will be a lot more reliable.

The 2-wire box might be better, might be worse. No harm in trying provided you're not using any of the clever features of the BT home hub.

- Nigel

I agree 100%.

If at all possible, avoid wireless like the plague.

Substandard performance on a regular basis, combined with security issues, combined with connectivity problems - it's not worth the hassle if you're able to use physical cable.

Strictly speaking, you shouldn't run cable between two, separate buildings due to earthing differences (large companies doing this normally use fibre-optic to overcome it) but in reality, there are generally few problems and certainly not worth worrying about for non-mission-critical connectivity.

Odie

See same question currently on uk.comp.home-networks which talks about using reflectors to make the aeriels more directional.

Ethernet is galvanically isolated, so you should be able to happily use it between buildings with different ground potentials, surely.

As to the wireless situation:

You could try making an even better (and thus probably illegal) antenna. For 'better' read 'more directional'. There are many plans available on the web, search for 'homebrew wifi antenna' and the like for plenty of hits. One made from an old tin can would, I suspect, do the trick:

Tim

In my experience, wireless networks are inherently poorer and less reliable than wired networks. You'd be best fitting a cable between your house and workshop.

In fact, I have a reel of Cat5e cable and connectors. If you want a long cable making, let me know. I'll do it for you at cost.

Best wishes,

Chris

These are 2.4GHz operation, I think the aerial length would need to be vanishingly small to match the frequency, my lappie wireless card (Linksys) doesn't have a separate aerial at all!

Just as a comparison, when we go to the USA, we stay in Super8 Motels and they all have free Wi-Fi. Most work fine in the rooms, occasionally you need to get closer to the server, but if they can do it, why cannot we get the same performance over here? Last October we had excellent internet feeds every day with no connection problems of hassles.

Most airports have free Wi-Fi, same question. Is there a 'commercial' grade transmitter available?

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Motels and they

'commercial' grade

There seems to be a wide variation in the sensitivity of wireless cards. I have two wireless hubs, one in the house and one in the workshop (to overcome the Faraday cage effect of the security mesh) and my laptop can only just receive in some places, whereas my daughters can get both anywhere on the premises and at the extremes of the garden.

AWEM

A halfway house between wireless and cat5 is radio over the mains cables.

Look for "Homeplug" which is the generic standard for the system. There are a few players now who are making kit to this standard. Most manufacturers offer a plug in wall wart with an ethernet socket. You need two of these one at each end. I did some experiments last year for workshop use as i was concerned about interference when running single to 3 phase inverters and to my surprise the link was rugged.

I won't recommend the brand I had as there was a batch problem and they have not been reliable but this was a manufacturing problem not an issue with the system.

Units are available from about £20 ea and support upto 14Mb/s There are some versions at 85Mb/s but I've not used these.

hth

Bob

You might try browsing through Solwise web site,

There are some good guides that might help you. Various aerials are available to improve yuor reception. Enter antenna in the search box on their web pages.

I had a problem with poor reception in one area of the house, just where my PC desk happened to be, and it was not conveneient to move the position of the wireless router. The problem was solved by a "better" antenna with extension cable (for 2.4GHz) placed on a ground plane (tin lid off an old biscuit tin) placed on top of the underdesk PC case.

You will have to work out the best solution for your particular configuration, but you should be able to get the requisite goodies to make the wireless completely reliable. Of course you should also ensure that it is secure.

Of course you could use the mains wiring to transmit and recieve but that depends on how your house and shop are wired up. Enter homeplug (sic) in a search box on their web site.

I have no connection with Solwise, just a satisfied customer.

Thanks for some handy tips, I think I've improved things greatly with some simple adjustments. Just need to persuade Norton Firewall to let me use the network now, but at least intenet access seems to have been restored.

Regards Kevin