Wifi distance question/extension.

[never_retreat]

I trying to help a friend get a signal out to his barn. The router is on the second floor of the house on the window sill facing the barn.
The signal makes it fairly close but craps out once it hits the sheet metal.
What kind of semi cheap way can I get the signal inside?
Some sort of directional antenna on the barn? Once its inside it can be hard wired, meaning it doesn't have to go back to another wireless signal.
Its a straight shot with only some light tree cover. 
Also preferably done without having to add more hardware/cost to the house side of the system.

[BobR]

When I worked in Montana the hospital blocked a lot of sites. What I did was get a small signal booster and a directional antenna, which allowed me to shoot about 100 yds from the house, through a garage and the hospital wall to use my laptop at work. Of course, this will cost a few bucks, but if he wants a signal out there it may be the way to go.

I used a Hawking HSB2 high gain signal booster and a US Robotics 14 dBi directional antenna. It worked like a champ. I had the antenna mounted on the inside of the window at the house after running the signal booster from the router on one end and the antenna on the other.

bob

[Bogie]

Sounds to me like the metal barn is doing the faraday thang... How hard would it be to mount something externally, and route a wire?

[KD5NRH]

Sounds to me like the metal barn is doing the faraday thang... How hard would it be to mount something externally, and route a wire?

There's the problem; insulate the barn from ground and find some plans for a good longwire antenna tuner.

[MikeB]

Is the barn less than or close to 300' from the house? It might be cheaper to messenger line or bury a cable than buy the directional antennas and related hardware. You should be able 300' to get waterproof direct burial cable for about $120ish. You should be able to bury it deep enough by hand (shovel) depending on where you are and the soil composition, or go the messenger cable route.

[cfabe]

For about $50 you can buy a Ubiquiti Networks Nanostation Loco 2 which will you can mount on the outside of the barn to pick up the signal from the house. It's not plug-and-play but pretty simple to set up if you know basic networking stuff.

[Ben]

Need cheap?

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

[Jim147]

I run mine from my home office, through two walls and down a little over a hundred yards to three metal sided buildings.

I put a repeater in a covered entryway to one building and put a USB adapter in a hub in the window of another building.

Since you are only going to one building I would put a antenna on the outside and run it into a bridge adapter. With good signal to the outside of the barn it wouldn't take much antenna but finding a cheap bridge isn't always easy.

jim

[CNYCacher]

finding a cheap bridge isn't always easy.

An old Linksys WRT router with any of the available third-party firmwares installed makes a cheap bridge.

I have one setup merely to turn my wired printer into a wifi printer.

It's only across the office from my desk and the main router, but darnit, I didn't have an ethernet cable long enough nor a desire to drape it across the room :)

[roo_ster]

Two directional antennas will do the trick, one mounted externally on the barn. 

[2nd_to_one]

I did something similar for my father-in-law's neighbor.  If the computer in the barn is a desktop just get an inexpensive wireless NIC with a removable antenna (SMA-style connector) and any external antenna with a wire.  We mounted the antenna through the wall of the building with insulating washers and then just strung the cable to the computer.  Works great and the total equipment cost was something around $30.

Hope this helps,

Steve

[zahc]

I put a repeater in a covered entryway to one building and put a USB adapter in a hub in the window of another building.

Where did you get the repeater? I have shopped for such a thing many times and came to the conclusion that wifi repeaters were only legend.

[CNYCacher]

Where did you get the repeater? I have shopped for such a thing many times and came to the conclusion that wifi repeaters were only legend.

Again, an old Linksys with any of the third-party firmwares installed will do this.

[roo_ster]

Again, an old Linksys with any of the third-party firmwares installed will do this.

THH, some of the Linksyses are better than others.  I've never paid more than $50 off ebay or wherever.

ddwrt.org has a chart.

[never_retreat]

Burring the wire is out, its got to be close to a 800-1000'.
Hes got no problem putting any kind of antenna on the barn, just want to do it cheapish. We can go a step up from the soup can antenna though.

There's the problem; insulate the barn from ground and find some plans for a good longwire antenna tuner.

The barn is 55x105' thats a lot of insulators.

[KD5NRH]

The barn is 55x105' thats a lot of insulators.

Or one big one.

[roo_ster]

Burring the wire is out, its got to be close to a 800-1000'.
Hes got no problem putting any kind of antenna on the barn, just want to do it cheapish. We can go a step up from the soup can antenna though.  
The barn is 55x105' thats a lot of insulators.

My neighbor bought a very large outdoor directional antenna.  They can be had.