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[Weaver]

I’m intending to extend wireless LAN coverage from the house into the garden to Janet’s summerhouse, a wooden hut with a metal roof and a big glass east-facing window. It’s probably about 30 m away from the house to the south east and the nearest rooms at the southeast corner are the main tv lounge/snug and upstairs former office, which is now Janet’s dressing room/woman-cave (as in man-cave). The metal roof of the summerhouse might be a big problem. I’m wondering about how best to implement this.

Tthinking of putting a WAP in the office window upstairs but that will be looking down on the metal roof, which could be a disaster. Yes, I can soon test this. Another alternative would be to have a WAP downstairs at the nearest corner, in the bay window below. This would be looking through a hedge and through the wooden thin walls of the summerhouse. Also there would be the extreme nuisance of getting the ethernet cable downstairs through the ceiling. Any thoughts?

Should I use precious 2.4GHz space for this? I’m already using 40MHz worth - channels 1 and 6 which only leaves me one third free, unless I go for a four-channel layout 1/5/9/13. What about propagation, 2.4 GHz carries better no?

Some years back, I used to run a 5GHz link to a hut which was to the north of the house and that was rather a lot further away than this, but that was clear line of sight from window to window, using non-directional TP-Link WAPs. It’s surprising how well even 5GHz carries; can get a long way even without a directional antenna especially if you have clear line of sight.

Alternatively with a lot of hassle I suppose I could run ethernet out to the summer house which would of course give superb performance. But how to get ethernet out of the house ? Any advice ? Is that even feasible ?

Iirc some years back I was asking about running ethernet and how to get it out of the house to a large shed. That project has now been dropped due to changes in use and increasing illness.

[chenks]

running ethernet would certainly be the best solution.
does the house have any air bricks? those are often a good source of access. or existing entry points to telephone/satellite etc that can be expanded slightly to fit an ethernet cable.

an alternate solution, if you had access to do so, would be a WIFI point-to-point link (something like https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/store/wifi-links/wifi-point-to-point-links/?t=451)

[tickmike]

I use something like this
https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/25248-solwise-ant-ant24-5onpg/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkdnk6qLl5AIVDPlRCh3bugviEAQYDCABEgIVb_D_BwE

Mounted on pole 3 mt above the one of the gable end walls.
Good coverage all over my large garden (and beyond).

[sevenlayermuddle]

Personally I’d avoid any WiFi solution in the interests of energy efficiency.   I’ve never really thought about the resilience of cheap Cat 5 laid outdoors.   But even if special shielded cables were needed, they don’t look all that expensive, compared to the up-front equipment costs and ongoing energy costs of WiFi.

I’m probably beginning to sound like a ‘climate change’ campaigner.  Don’t worry, I’m not.   I think for example the school children recently masquerading as climate science experts should be appropriately punished for their misguided truancy.  And I think the teachers, parents and media who misguide them for political gain should perhaps be investigated for a form of child exploitation. 

But on a purely scientific basis imho, wasted energy, where it can be avoided, is generally a bad thing.

[Weaver]

I have to have wireless LAN because the hosts are wireless only - iPads and iPhones.

That’s a good point about Wi-Fi link instead of a wireless one. I used to do such before - had a line of sight link between two 5GHz WAPs and then another WAP in another building. I forgot about that, but indeed I could do so, I’d just have to get two more WAPs. Saves a lot of hassle.

I used TP-Link 5GHz WAPs for point-to-point links before and they were great. Totally solid.

@7LM I shall go off and buy some renewable energy then to supply this. I could do with some solar panels and some wind generation, if I had the cash to spare. The existing wireless LAN equipment in the house is zero usage anyway most of the time, since I need heating in the house, and it reduces my heating bill. It’s so cold and windy up here, being so exposed, that we need heating nine months of the year. Had fires lit last month.

I have lots of long cat7a double shielded cable already I stock in fact. I was intending to run it inside poly pipe for protection.

@chenks There is ingress for satellite, through a solid poured concrete wall, but it’s into the wrong floor. The walls are immensely thick stone or else poured concrete. The stone varies between four and six feet thick, so thick that a chimney and inglenook fireplace is set in in the Gabor end walls without a protruding chimney breast, just in the full thickness of the wall. The poured concrete bay windows are the thinnest point.

Actually, I’m just thinking: the phone lines get into the upstairs office a perfect entry point, using the flashing by the edge of the roof. I think the roofline there would be the way. It has suddenly come to me.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Happy to agree that you have thought through the energy implications, Weaver.   My reasoning was based, to some extent, on the assumption that a summer house would not benefit from surplus heat.  But I accept that part of the equation would be marginal.

For what it’s worth, I have been keeping an eye on my own bills over the past 5-10 years, during the transition to led light bulbs.   As you and I might expect, but many may not understand, my gas central heating consumption has risen by about the same amount as my electricity consumption has dropped.

In my defence, that won’t stop me looking for genuine opportunities to reduce energy usage.   

[benji09]

  I  have had been placing coax cables and things in garden hose pipe for years. I have so far not had any problems with the cables underground over the years.
 I would not suggest to anyone to use this method for mains cable...........   

[dee.jay]

Genius!

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'd be veering to something like an Ubiquiti outdoor Access Point personally.

I did use two identical routers running OpenWRT for years, until everyone jumped on WiFi and now the interference is too much for a stable link, then I switched to a proper PtP link with Ubiquiti gear.

[benji09]

  Weaver is in a nice position from what I remember him saying. His next door neighbours in the next field, the sheep, don't use WiFi as far I know......

[Weaver]

A new house is going up nearer to me, built by my neighbour. So there’s more danger of wifi interference in both directions. The massive stone gable end (something like six foot thick double stone wall) is facing toward the new house, to the south, but still some distance away. No windows in that face of our house but there are two windows in the small western extension to the house which face south so they will be an RF leak.

[benji09]

  Well Weaver, living my road there is a lot of WiFi 2.4Ghz congestion, but selecting the lower speed WiFi option allows me to find a channel that nobody here tends to use.  I am not going to specify that channel here, but it does not take too much working out............. But obviously 5Ghz WiFi is normally the way to go, But of course you have your stone walls.  But a 2.4 to 5Ghz repeater put in a window in the required direction, if possible, may be an option. Working split frequencies also tends not to cut the the speed through it, I have found.

[Weaver]

I used to use a pair of TP-Link 5GHz non-directional WAPs as a bridge from the house to an outside building; working out of the landing window, it was line of sight over I don’t know 100m maybe a bit less but anyway the far end of the bridge was a WAP set up in ‘client mode’ so it just bridged everything onto its wired ethernet side. This TP-Link WAP, in a window too, looking at the house, was connected wirefully to yet another WAP in the centre of the outside building. This third WAP, which was a ZyXEL NWA-3560, gave central full coverage in 2.4 + 5GHz. So three WAPs. The building-to-building bridge would have been much better with directional antennae but it worked fine even with low signal levels.

[Alex Atkin UK]

  Weaver is in a nice position from what I remember him saying. His next door neighbours in the next field, the sheep, don't use WiFi as far I know......

Its not just interference though, that is just what made it somewhat unusable, combined with the trees in the way.  The fact of the matter was, the signal having to pass through wall/glass dramatically decreased the signal to begin with, using an external antenna only helped due to being more directional, as you lose a LOT of the signal in the coaxial cable.  An external unit avoids both these pitfalls.

Wifi doesn't actually go through glass very well, not to mention you don't want electrical appliances in direct sunlight unless they are designed for it.

That said, using OpenWRT and an external Yagi antenna, I did push my WiFi to 140m into the nearby park, but that was with perfect line-of-sight.

[benji09]

   I confess that I was amazed at the RF losses through glass. During winter time a few years ago I bought a Sky satellite receiver and dish that was on offer. I got it home in the dark, so I decided to try it out in my home. All connected up and aimed out through the closed window. I could JUST about get a signal. The next day in the freezing cold in the garden, I set it up. This resulted in perfect reception. Obviously satellite signals in this country are in the 10Ghz  range not 5Ghz. But it surprised me the loss though glass. I think I read that glass contains lead.
  Incidentally, my own WiFi signal I  have found is usable 150 yards down the road, at the 2.4Ghz frequency. This is in a normal street. I don't know what the actual thoughput was though, as I was only making VOIP call on the mobile/VOIP phone I had at the time. If I look at the wireless networks that I can see on my computer, there are 12 full or nearly full strength WiFi networks here. So Weaver's worry about WiFi congestion from his new neighbour are hopefully groundless.