fireandfrost
New member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2011
- Messages
- 4
Hey everyone,
I was just watching the NCIX Tech Tips episode Linus put together on the Linksys RE1000 range extender and it got me thinking that I might be able to find an answer to our problem here on these forums so I thought I would explain the situation and find out if anyone has any ideas.
My family & I currently live in an apartment building in Panama and like most of the construction in this region our place is built out of solid concrete and cinder block with a large amount of steel re-bar in the walls. As you can imagine this causes quite a bit of signal degradation. In fact, by the time our wireless signal passes from our computer room to our living room (approximately 30 feet) the signal is down to about 20% strength and is all but unusable.
To address this problem I first tried the RE1000 device, however the next closest power outlet down the hallway is already out of range of a strong enough wireless signal for it to boost (getting about 1-2 out of 5 bars). If I try to relocate it closer to the router then it winds up on the wrong side of the choke point where the signal starts to degrade rapidly.
The next thing I tried was to purchase a significantly stronger repeater in the form of the SR600X. Since this device boasted of being able to broadcast a wireless signal a mile & a half I figured it should be powerful enough to blast past the choke point and reach our living room at least. It also offered a power over ethernet option that helped make it's placement far more flexible. To a certain degree I was correct and it was able to broadcast a strong connection to the part of the apartment we needed it too. However I am having some issues with this repeater not staying configured properly. Twice now I have had to re-set up the repeater by going through the initial setup process. I believe this has something to do with the DHCP license expiring and since it seems to happen on a daily basis (the duration of my IP leases).
Our router is a few years old now (a WRT610N ) so it's possible that it is starting to wear out and have conflicts with the newer hardware. However I am reluctant to throw yet more money at this problem and *hope* that it will be the final key that resolves the issue.
I believe that the biggest culprits to our signal degradation are a combination of the general makeup of the walls, the 2 metal door frames that the signal must pass through on it's way to the living room, and finally the solid metal door and frame that sits in the main hallway between our computer room and the living room.
Incidentally I found an excellent application to help me identify exactly where the weakest point begins, however it is only for Android phones/tablets and we own an iPad2.
I think an ideal solution would be to run a hard wired connection out to the living room that then broadcasts the wireless signal again from there. However I haven't been able to find anything that functioned in this manner.
I was just watching the NCIX Tech Tips episode Linus put together on the Linksys RE1000 range extender and it got me thinking that I might be able to find an answer to our problem here on these forums so I thought I would explain the situation and find out if anyone has any ideas.
My family & I currently live in an apartment building in Panama and like most of the construction in this region our place is built out of solid concrete and cinder block with a large amount of steel re-bar in the walls. As you can imagine this causes quite a bit of signal degradation. In fact, by the time our wireless signal passes from our computer room to our living room (approximately 30 feet) the signal is down to about 20% strength and is all but unusable.
To address this problem I first tried the RE1000 device, however the next closest power outlet down the hallway is already out of range of a strong enough wireless signal for it to boost (getting about 1-2 out of 5 bars). If I try to relocate it closer to the router then it winds up on the wrong side of the choke point where the signal starts to degrade rapidly.
The next thing I tried was to purchase a significantly stronger repeater in the form of the SR600X. Since this device boasted of being able to broadcast a wireless signal a mile & a half I figured it should be powerful enough to blast past the choke point and reach our living room at least. It also offered a power over ethernet option that helped make it's placement far more flexible. To a certain degree I was correct and it was able to broadcast a strong connection to the part of the apartment we needed it too. However I am having some issues with this repeater not staying configured properly. Twice now I have had to re-set up the repeater by going through the initial setup process. I believe this has something to do with the DHCP license expiring and since it seems to happen on a daily basis (the duration of my IP leases).
Our router is a few years old now (a WRT610N ) so it's possible that it is starting to wear out and have conflicts with the newer hardware. However I am reluctant to throw yet more money at this problem and *hope* that it will be the final key that resolves the issue.
I believe that the biggest culprits to our signal degradation are a combination of the general makeup of the walls, the 2 metal door frames that the signal must pass through on it's way to the living room, and finally the solid metal door and frame that sits in the main hallway between our computer room and the living room.
Incidentally I found an excellent application to help me identify exactly where the weakest point begins, however it is only for Android phones/tablets and we own an iPad2.
I think an ideal solution would be to run a hard wired connection out to the living room that then broadcasts the wireless signal again from there. However I haven't been able to find anything that functioned in this manner.