Wi-Fi Extenders - good info

great thread and one I have been looking at as well with trying to get crappy rv park wifi to work a little better or work at all in some cases..

we travel with a 2005 classic airstream, which is like a no wifi zone for the most part so I see the need to have an outside mounted wifi antenna system of sorts.

I was looking at this system from c crane a leader in electronics

http://www.ccrane.com/WiFi-Antennas-1/Xtreme-8-WiFi-Repeater-System

has anyone used this system and how well do they work.

RLS7201 wrote:

ChooChooMan74 wrote:
Problem with them, every repeater hop cuts the bandwidth in half.

May I have a more detailed explanation of your post, please. Inquiring minds want to know why a repeater cuts band width in half. Does that apply to all repeaters? What about over air to wire repeaters?

Thanks
Richard

This can be a little confusing as the loss in WiFi Network bandwidth can be 50%, or likely even more in single radio routers. This doesn't necessarily mean you will see a reduction in you web access speeds. The loss relates to wireless transfer speeds for the specific router. I'm guessing that most campgrounds have low web access speeds in the first place?

For my own single-radio flashed router repeaters, I still get 90%-100% of web net speeds.

docj wrote:

ChooChooMan74 wrote:

RLS7201 wrote:

ChooChooMan74 wrote:
Problem with them, every repeater hop cuts the bandwidth in half.

May I have a more detailed explanation of your post, please. Inquiring minds want to know why a repeater cuts band width in half. Does that apply to all repeaters? What about over air to wire repeaters?

Thanks
Richard

WiFi communicates one way at a time. For example.

Device to Access Point
Access Point to Device.

Now, when you add a repeater.
Device to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point
Access Point to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point.

Now, add another repeater.

Device to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Access point
Access point to repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Device.

Now, the 2nd one, you may not think it halved it again, but in reality, it does. Add another hop, and you are halved again.

This isn't necessarily so if you use a repeater/amplifier that has two separate radios. In my WiFiRanger setup I have two separate routers, each with its own radio. One is only involved in connecting to the AP, the other with communicating with devices on my network. There still is some bandwidth loss, but it isn't as large as you indicated.

I built my own setup similar to yours, but it still isn't a repeater. It is a router connected my a wireless bridge. A lot more expensive than a repeater.

ChooChooMan74 wrote:

RLS7201 wrote:

ChooChooMan74 wrote:
Problem with them, every repeater hop cuts the bandwidth in half.

May I have a more detailed explanation of your post, please. Inquiring minds want to know why a repeater cuts band width in half. Does that apply to all repeaters? What about over air to wire repeaters?

Thanks
Richard

WiFi communicates one way at a time. For example.

Device to Access Point
Access Point to Device.

Now, when you add a repeater.
Device to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point
Access Point to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point.

Now, add another repeater.

Device to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Access point
Access point to repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Device.

Now, the 2nd one, you may not think it halved it again, but in reality, it does. Add another hop, and you are halved again.

This isn't necessarily so if you use a repeater/amplifier that has two separate radios. In my WiFiRanger setup I have two separate routers, each with its own radio. One is only involved in connecting to the AP, the other with communicating with devices on my network. There still is some bandwidth loss, but it isn't as large as you indicated.

RLS7201 wrote:

ChooChooMan74 wrote:
Problem with them, every repeater hop cuts the bandwidth in half.

May I have a more detailed explanation of your post, please. Inquiring minds want to know why a repeater cuts band width in half. Does that apply to all repeaters? What about over air to wire repeaters?

Thanks
Richard

WiFi communicates one way at a time. For example.

Device to Access Point
Access Point to Device.

Now, when you add a repeater.
Device to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point
Access Point to Repeater
Repeater to Access Point.

Now, add another repeater.

Device to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Access point
Access point to repeater 2
Repeater 2 to Repeater 1
Repeater 1 to Device.

Now, the 2nd one, you may not think it halved it again, but in reality, it does. Add another hop, and you are halved again.

westernrvparkowner wrote:

jcpainter wrote:


To bring the campground WiFi into your rig from the furthest distance, a CPE device like "Rogue Wave" will work best. Even then, if the park doesn't have adequate bandwidth, you won't get wonderful speeds.

You also have to remember wifi is a two way communication. My access points are antennas that have over three square feet of surface area. The radio attached to that antenna to broadcast my signal is hard wired to the power source and is transmitting at the maximum output allowed by law. Your antenna inside your phone, tablet or laptop is about the size of a dime. It's radio transmits at a fraction of the power the park's wifi system is transmitting. Apple devices especially are known for having low power radio transmitters. Apple actually depowered the radios in their devices to prolong battery life.
So it becomes just like the commercial, "can you hear my now?" Hearing the park's wifi signal is just half of the battle. That access point has to hear your device also. If it doesn't, you will show connected and the connection will just spin and spin with nothing happening. The simple test for that is to walk your device closer to the access point and see if suddenly you don't get throughput. If you were connected at your RV and you couldn't get throughput and then throughput suddenly occurs when you get closer to the access point, the problem is the access point isn't hearing your device.

Agreed. With the Rogue Wave CPE (of course there are other brands too) the radio and antenna combination unit is mounted on a pole, or on the batwing with an Ethernet cable that runs into the rig and feeds the router.

jcpainter wrote:
The article oversimplifies and doesn't cover the many variables that come into play when extending the signal.

It also is not really relevant to campground situations. WiFi is line of sight and there are often lots of "blockers" between devices inside your rig and the campground's repeaters.

When you do see a strong signal from the campground WiFi, but can't get onto the internet or when you do, it is really SO S L O W, that is network congestion. They don't have enough bandwidth to handle all the devices trying to access the internet. Add to that problem someone that's streaming Netflix and hogging the limited bandwidth and you might as well forget it until everyone else goes to bed!

To bring the campground WiFi into your rig from the furthest distance, a CPE device like "Rogue Wave" will work best. Even then, if the park doesn't have adequate bandwidth, you won't get wonderful speeds.

You also have to remember wifi is a two way communication. My access points are antennas that have over three square feet of surface area. The radio attached to that antenna to broadcast my signal is hard wired to the power source and is transmitting at the maximum output allowed by law. Your antenna inside your phone, tablet or laptop is about the size of a dime. It's radio transmits at a fraction of the power the park's wifi system is transmitting. Apple devices especially are known for having low power radio transmitters. Apple actually depowered the radios in their devices to prolong battery life.
So it becomes just like the commercial, "can you hear my now?" Hearing the park's wifi signal is just half of the battle. That access point has to hear your device also. If it doesn't, you will show connected and the connection will just spin and spin with nothing happening. The simple test for that is to walk your device closer to the access point and see if suddenly you don't get throughput. If you were connected at your RV and you couldn't get throughput and then throughput suddenly occurs when you get closer to the access point, the problem is the access point isn't hearing your device.

jcpainter wrote:
The article oversimplifies and doesn't cover the many variables that come into play when extending the signal.

It also is not really relevant to campground situations. WiFi is line of sight and there are often lots of "blockers" between devices inside your rig and the campground's repeaters.

When you do see a strong signal from the campground WiFi, but can't get onto the internet or when you do, it is really SO S L O W, that is network congestion. They don't have enough bandwidth to handle all the devices trying to access the internet. Add to that problem someone that's streaming Netflix and hogging the limited bandwidth and you might as well forget it until everyone else goes to bed!

To bring the campground WiFi into your rig from the furthest distance, a CPE device like "Rogue Wave" will work best. Even then, if the park doesn't have adequate bandwidth, you won't get wonderful speeds.

precisely. more and more parks we've frequented over the last few years are auto-throttling the user's bandwidth upon detecting ANY streaming be it audio, video or even OS updates. that's only fair to all of the other users in the park. wanna watch a movie or videos on YouTube then set up your MiFi or smart phone as a personal hotspot.

The article oversimplifies and doesn't cover the many variables that come into play when extending the signal.

It also is not really relevant to campground situations. WiFi is line of sight and there are often lots of "blockers" between devices inside your rig and the campground's repeaters.

When you do see a strong signal from the campground WiFi, but can't get onto the internet or when you do, it is really SO S L O W, that is network congestion. They don't have enough bandwidth to handle all the devices trying to access the internet. Add to that problem someone that's streaming Netflix and hogging the limited bandwidth and you might as well forget it until everyone else goes to bed!

To bring the campground WiFi into your rig from the furthest distance, a CPE device like "Rogue Wave" will work best. Even then, if the park doesn't have adequate bandwidth, you won't get wonderful speeds.

RoyB wrote:
We found early on there is more to it than just getting something better to pickup the WIFI HOT SPOTS for internet at the various camp grounds.

Most of the camp ground become overloaded especially between 6PM and 11PM when everybody there starts using the local netzoerk. Even with a nice strong signal it becomes very slow whenerver everyone logs into it...

To always have great connections required us to sogn up with VERIZON MIFI Account and create our own secured WIFI HOT SPOT. This works whereever your Verizon Cell phone works...

Roy Ken

and if you already have a Verizon smartphone you can turn your phone into a personal hotspot for no extra $.