Looking for Wireless wifi solution

[Rupe]

My brother lives above the garage which is detached from the main house. My room is facing his room from the main house. At the moment it has a wireless router in it Netgear N300 that he is getting bad wifi reception off. He wants to run a wire through a window in my room into his room above the garage. I do not like this idea, not only does it compromise the seal on my windows it also looks bad having a wire overhead. Would getting a more powerful router be the solution to this? Or perhaps another alternative? Thanks in advance for your suggestions

[Guest]

I would first recommend finding the bottleneck. Either the WiFi card or the router/WAP or both. 

[Rupe]

1 minute ago, IAmLamp said:

I would first recommend finding the bottleneck. Either the WiFi card or the router/WAP or both. 

How would one go about finding the bottleneck?

[Guest]

What are the specifications of the router and the WiFi card? 

[tlink]

you could set up directional antenna receiver set up. set an receiver and repeater at his end at the window and set a directional antenna at your end pointing at it. this is the absolute best case scenario your going to be able to create without going absolutely crazy. the other option would be him just buying a 30 buck alfa wifi receiver and sticking it to the window on his side.

[Rupe]

12 minutes ago, IAmLamp said:

What are the specifications of the router and the WiFi card? 

We're using the Netgear n300 WNR2200 300mps, struggling to find specs on it atm, might be hard for me to get information about what WiFi card he is using atm.  Seems he is using his phone as a wifi card, but he says when he put in a proper wifi card it had even worse signal

 

12 minutes ago, tlink said:

you could set up directional antenna receiver set up. set an receiver and repeater at his end at the window and set a directional antenna at your end pointing at it. this is the absolute best case scenario your going to be able to create without going absolutely crazy. the other option would be him just buying a 30 buck alfa wifi receiver and sticking it to the window on his side.

Your going to have to explain to me how the first suggestion would work, so the receiver will receive the signal from the directional antenna and transfer it into the repeater which will give him wifi, and the antenna will just get wifi from the wifi already in the house? Sorry i'm inexperienced at this sort of thing

[Donut417]

Your router doesn't have external antennas I see. I was going suggest you could mod your router by detaching one of the antenna's and maybe adding a directional antenna. Then doing the same at your brothers computer. If you point directional antenna  at each other it will make the signal go where you need it. Another solution I would check in on, depending on the cost is a site to site wireless link. Ubuiquiti has some of these products. Linus has showed them off. You need to have line of sight with them, but some of these can go up to 25 kilometers  in distance. 

 

 

[Guest]

What WiFi card did he put in? What are the specifications of it? 

[Rupe]

6 minutes ago, IAmLamp said:

What WiFi card did he put in? What are the specifications of it? 

Its Tp-Link with 2 Antennas on it, i cant find the name for it, quite likely this one 'TP-LINK TL-WN851ND 300Mbps'

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Rupe said:

Its Tp-Link with 2 Antennas on it, i cant find the name for it, quite likely this one 'TP-LINK TL-WN851ND 300Mbps'

I take it you're using Windows, what does the signal strength say in the WiFi meter? Low or high or good or bad reception? 

[Rupe]

Just now, IAmLamp said:

I take it you're using Windows, what does the signal strength say in the WiFi meter? Low or high or good or bad reception? 

Yes windows. It's unfortunately no longer in his computer, its in the family computer which is in the main house now

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Rupe said:

Yes windows. It's unfortunately no longer in his computer, its in the family computer which is in the main house now

Okay, so put it back temporarily just to find out and then put it back. 

[tlink]

17 hours ago, Rupe said:

We're using the Netgear n300 WNR2200 300mps, struggling to find specs on it atm, might be hard for me to get information about what WiFi card he is using atm.  Seems he is using his phone as a wifi card, but he says when he put in a proper wifi card it had even worse signal

 

Your going to have to explain to me how the first suggestion would work, so the receiver will receive the signal from the directional antenna and transfer it into the repeater which will give him wifi, and the antenna will just get wifi from the wifi already in the house? Sorry i'm inexperienced at this sort of thing

it would look like this

wifi.bmp (my paint skills are amazing i know)

you could simplify this by using a lan cable from number 1 to number 2 instead of another pair of directional antennas, that would be the preferred way anyways since it would lower cost and ping. you could also try setting up a directional antenna from the main router but i do not know how good the signal will be going trough walls etc. or the location of the router and if it even supports external antenna's. you could also use number 1 to number 2 with only a directional antenna on number 2 but again this would slightly degrade performance and may result in an sub optimal signal. you could even just use a normal antenna between 1 and 2 on both sides if the signal is strong enough

[Rupe]

@tlink Thanks for doing that, really helpful. There is already a wired connection in my room which is what the router in my room is plugged into so no need to worry about the connection from 1-2 got that covered. Number 3, is that two objects (a directional reciever and broad repeater) or does one object do both functions? Some examples of the kind of products would be really helpful, thanks again

[tlink]

yes one product could do both functions. if the router is in your room than you could possibly even remove point 2 completely and just set up a directional antenna at his place pointing at your router. if that signal is not strong enough than you can try mounting an directional antenna to the router in your room IF your router has 2 antenna's atleast that perform the same function, otherwise you would lose wifi. 

this one for example could do both functions: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I15EAIO but i am not sure if this has removable antenna's which would be preferred if you want a directional antenna on it, but you could easily mod that yourself with a pringles can or an empty soda can.

[Rupe]

@tlink The router sadly has no directional antennas on it, its the   Netgear n300 WNR2200 , im happy to buy a new router though, any recommendations for good routers and directional antenna? The only issue with the receiver/repeater you suggested was that it plugs into a wall, i think it would be better to have something we could put on a table next to the window perhaps?