Extending building's free wifi to my mom's apt where there is no signal?
2My mom lives in a building that provides free wifi to each floor’s lobby. The signal vanishes about half way down the hall to her apt. Those who live close enough have free wifi in their apt, those who live near the end of the hall do not. Mgt has no intention of doing anything to extend it.
Anyone have any ideas for a temporary solution I can bring with me each time to get a signal in her apt? I have no access to any ethernet cables, there are two power outlets in the lobby (this is a retirement community so likely I could put something behind the end table and no one would notice or steal it). Or is there something I could put in her apt that would pick up the signal?
Signal loss happens generally anywhere from 8-15 paces from her apt (sometimes you can get closer - just checking what my computer gets walk walking down the hall - the one and only time I got a signal at her apt door it was lost the minute I went through the door), hall walls and walls between the apartments are plasterboard over cement with steel girders when needed. The elevators are on her side of the lobby and her apt is on the elevator side of the hall. Lobby ends at the hall so no option of putting anything anywhere that isn’t going to have the elevators in the line of sight.
Any suggestions appreciated. I’d love to sit in her living room and use the internet. Or better yet lie in bed at night and do so (bedroom is at the far end of the apt - she has the last apt on the hall).
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@f00l takes the blame for
Badgering @kidsandliz to
Create this topic.
@f00l does not wish to
Be blamed because no one had
Ideas. So please help.
Do you have access to the antennas on the router? You could probably screw in better ones without anyone noticing.
@dave No I don’t. I am not sure where the signal is actually coming from. Each lobby (6 story apt) has it in the hall by the elevator only.
@Kidsandliz
try one of these for wifi
it does require a computer though. it comes with 2 Antenna , one normal and one huge almost footlong one.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Gain-Long-Rang-Alfa-9dBi-Mount/dp/B0038Q4AIG/
i bought one when i was in college and could get wifi of all my neighbors even the ones across the street.
@communist So this is just used inside the apt? What you linked to works only with older mac systems so I’d have to find this upgraded. Says a 1.2 miles range. But with cement, etc. walls will that matter when all I’d need is maybe 80 or 90 feet?
@Kidsandliz the website has drivers https://www.alfa.com.tw/download_show.php?combo_0=&combo_1=&combo_2=&keyword=AWUS036NH&verify=x6h4r4&x=38&y=12
from every from mac os 10.4 to mac 10.12 (sierra) (and all the windows support from windows vista to windows 10)
With cement block construction you’re sadly already fighting a losing battle with wifi. They make wall-plug style repeaters but if there aren’t outlets in the hallway those wouldn’t do much good and for cheap ones they start at $30. They’d work for behind an end table like you describe but it’s likely that the transmitter they have in the lobby isn’t any worse, it’s the signal degradation as it tries to pass through the cement block and steel construction that’s the main problem. Your money would probably be better spent upgrading their existing transmitter (like @dave said) if they’d let you, but even then it’s a long shot.
@jbartus Signal is 5 bars in the lobby. It is about 80 or 90 feet from the lobby to the door to her apt. The signal vanishes about 30-50ish feet down the hall (hard to tell since my computer on searches periodically). Doubt they’d let me.
@Kidsandliz sounds like an old tech router to begin with. If you get a modern tech repeater you might be able to make it work from the lobby if it’s that bad by rebroadcast a 5GHz network in either 802.11n or 802.11ac. Personally would only deploy it as needed to limit risk of discovery and removal.
http://www.target.com/p/belkin-n600-dual-band-wi-fi-range-extender-f9k1122-tg/-/A-15181367
@jbartus 5GHz will have less penetration thru the concrete, etc. than 2.4Ghz.
@kidsandliz I’m sort of guessing you have an (unjailbroken) iPhone. But if I’m wrong about that or someone else handy has an Android phone, install Farproc’s WiFi Analyzer on it. This tool will allow you to see exactly what WiFi there is and what signal levels you are dealing with.
Use in in the lobby to determine what you have and then monitor the signal as you head down the hall and into your mom’s apartment. With this info, we can determine if there is any point in trying to use a high gain antenna in your mom’s apartment or if you need to use a repeater, say in the podiatrist room or elsewhere. You may actually need both solutions (the repeater to get a stronger signal in your mom’s apartment, plus a high-gain antenna in her apartment to use what little signal is left).
@baqui63 I don’t have much hope for either thru concrete I was thinking more in terms of hoping it’d make it down the hall and bounce around a bit to sneak thru the door or something. There’s a reason standard practice for that kind of construction is an access point in every room, all of this is long shot territory. Thus the target link (and Belkin brand) for easy returns versus an online supplier.
It’s worth trying a signal extender in the nearest outlet to your Mom’s apartment, and another inside her apartment. I have extras, that I no longer use, that you can have. I recently upgraded my WiFi, and got extenders, that more than cover my needs, with the new router. So, my others are just sitting unused, if you want them, they’re yours.
If you do this and stick it under that table, maybe put a sticky note saying what it does so no-one will take it if they get nosy or cleans behind the table.
@RiotDemon The currently cleaning lady isn’t into cleaning much. I was sitting in the chair and she made one swipe from the elevator to the laundry room door and then one swipe back and called it done LOL
@Lurker That is really generous of you. My email is my user name at yahoo. I am headed home in the morning (been here 10 days) and will be coming back here in a couple of months so there would be time to deal with all this before I came back. My mom needs a fair bit of help and since I am only marginally employed at the moment (not my choice; adjunct online) I have the time to come periodically to give my sister a break from helping her - sister is local. They have a rule here I can only stay 2 weeks at a time so this will likely become a well beaten path back and forth.
@Kidsandliz
If you wanna tell us - why the two week rule?
@f00l They want to make sure you don’t move in with anyone without for paying rent and dinner. If you stay longer than 2 weeks they charge $20/day and you are required to pay, in addition, $12/day for dinner even if you have no intention of eating in their dinning hall.
@Kidsandliz
Oh. For some reason i thought the 2 week rule came from the family. It seemed odd.
Must have misread.
Anyone know if you can get a router or repeater with a wire antenna that could be run thru a doorway (even with the door closed) so that the repeater could be inside the apt but the antenna would extend to the hallway?
@f00l this subset of anyone says no
@f00l This, with a directional antenna, would be a good bet. There are nontechnical problems with other methods that require leaving equipment in the hallway such that having all equipment connected in mom’s apt would be optimal.
A dual radio repeater, or even a wireless client with directional antenna aimed down the hall and a separate wireless router in the apartment, would keep everything but the antenna inside the apartment and under mom’s control.
For temporary/take it with you use, an external usb wifi adapter, again with directional antenna if possible, could maybe be strung through the door and aimed down the hall. A usb extension cord could make that sort of workable. It might even work directly from inside the apartment, although you’re passing through quite a few more walls to kill the signal. Something like http://m.ebay.com/itm/201594514253 would probably work.
@djslack
Can you point to examples of a repeater with an antenna like that?
Thx so much.
@f00l This one is close but I don’t think the antenna is detachable: https://www.amazon.com/Hawking-Technology-Radio-Repeater-HW2R1/dp/B00K6OVS2E
I’m thinking about something with the form factor of the venerable WRT54G, where you can screw on the antenna of your choice. If I were trying to hack this up myself using bare bones equipment, I’d probably wind up with something like a wrt54g running dd-wrt as a receiver with antennas out in the hallway, connected to another router inside the apartment to broadcast the wifi inside. Dual routers (or dual radio) to escape the halving of bandwidth when you do repeating with a single radio.
If I were doing it with a little more budget for a long term install, I’d probably try using the Ubiquiti Nanostation M2 as a client in the hallway mounted on a bracket to point it toward the lobby. It’s POE so would be a neat install and then feed it into my own wireless inside the apt. I’d also vpn everything on my end assuming this is open wifi in the building.
@djslack Fortunately - well not exactly as if she was closer I’d not be having this problem - mom is the last apt at the end of the hall thus unlikely anyone would notice, especially if I yanked it inside at 10pm when security makes their one and only run through the halls.
i think a range extender would work, if you could get it set up in the hallway. any concerns with it going missing if you leave it out there?
e.g.
@Yoda_Daenerys She is at the end of the hall and if it is small enough they have an external (letter size) bin thing outside their door I could put it in.
@Kidsandliz it requires electricity, of course, so would that work there?
@Yoda_Daenerys I’d have to run an extension cord but it right by her door so the cord wouldn’t be especially noticeable.
/youtube cantenna
I’d recommend asking for management’s permission before attempting to engineer a covert and possibly ineffective solution. The management may not want to spend any money, but they may be willing to let you spend yours to help your mom. If not, then it is their private property and it may be better not to cause trouble, as it is your mom that has to live with the consequences. I don’t work in that industry, but ours also provides free wifi access to “guests”, but we do not look kindly on attempts to steal it or devices surreptitiously installed on our properties. Since we didn’t install it, we’d have no idea whether unknown devices are for the benefit or detriment of our guests and would have to involve authorities when such devices are found. I would especially not tamper with their devices, as some have suggested. That definitely would be categorized as intentional criminal activity.
You can always buy cellular data service if internet access is an absolute necessity.
KuoH
@kuoh It would only be temporary and used while I am visiting Mom. Mom has enough trouble with a flip phone, cable TV, and an automatic camera. Internet and computers is well beyond her. If all I am doing is temporarily plugging something into the wall and not modifying anything then I am not so sure why they’d be upset. I don’t watch videos or anything - email, teach class online, hang out on this forum (although I have been more or less MIA here the last couple of days) and a couple of other ones.
There’s really two ways of doing this: extending the existing WiFi to your mom’s apartment or using a better antenna in, or just outside of, your mom’s apartment.
The cantenna approach mentioned above is one way to go, perhaps with the antenna and a usb WiFi adaptor in the hallway outside your mom’s door with a usb cable running inside to something. This will have the antenna and adaptor in the hallway which may or may not be acceptable. There are also yagi and other antennas you can play with, tho the cantenna ones are probably your best bet.
With a better antenna inside your mom’s apartment you might be able to get some signal but chances are much lower for that working well. If this works tho, there would be nothing outside of your mom’s apartment.
Have you considered a repeater in one of the apartments closer to the lobby? This would be hidden from the building and hallway, but would require cooperation from the other resident. You might be able to sell it tho since it could open up WiFi for the rest of the apartments on the floor, and possibly others above and below as well.
@baqui63 Hiding it inside apartments within range is genius.
@baqui63 That cantenna thing looks pretty big to put in a hall. This is a retirement center - they need a parking lot in the dinning hall for the walkers. I am not sure to what extent mom knows very well the people around her. They keep dying. I could hide a repeater in the room on mom’s side of the elevator - that is left unlocked with the door open but is only used twice a month when a podiatrist comes in. There is a sink in there and I could stash it under the sink or something - or likely even out of sight between the chair and the wall as no one goes in there. Ever. Except with he comes and I could move it then. That isn’t all the close to mom, but it is at least on her side of the elevators (right behind them on her hall).
@Kidsandliz Could you just knock on the door of someone in range, say you need to plug something in for the wifi, and plug it in with a sticky note saying “(name of retirement home) wifi extender- please do not unplug”? It’s not lying, and the people who clean the rooms between residents will take it at face value.
@Kidsandliz You might be able to use a cantenna IN your mom’s room. In the hallway, you’d want it up high, above your mom’s door, maybe just below the ceiling. In fact, if the hallway has a dropped ceiling, you could put it just above the ceiling.
I like @Pantheist’s suggestion just above. If you used a label maker to make the label, it would look even more official than a sticky note.
Using that suggestion in the mostly unused room would probably work well and you’d likely not need to move it.
Even if that room isn’t all that close to your mom’s room, it might be close enough.
You could rig up one of the cantennas and see if you can get the wifi. If so. Get something like a wrt54g and use ddwrt on it. Turn it into a wifi repeater. Have one antenna pull in wifi with the cantenna. Another push it out. That or use 2 routers. One with ddwrt and a high powered/cantenna to grab wifi and give you wired internet. Then put the wired internet to a new router, you may even be able to see if she can make friends with someone that has it and possibly put that rig in their apt and see if powerline networking would put Ethernet to your mothers apt to put another wifi router to help other neighbors too!
@sohmageek I am going to have to google a bit to understand what you are talking about here. So you are saying a repeater to pull the signal from the lobby, then another repeater to pull it down the hall from the router in the lobby and then ethernet from that down the hall router to my computer?
@Kidsandliz so the thing with straight wifi repeaters, they grab wifi and then rebroadcast it. It halves the speed. So yes that many work if you could get them/ the neighbors to allow it in their homes. What I was thinking was using wifi to wired (something like ddwrt compatible router as a bridge (take wireless and make it wired) then another wifi router (something with a stronger antenna) as wifi from the wired port of the bridge. It may work with a cantenna to do all in one. But the range of the wifi being broadcasted would be limited as you’re aiming one antenna to pick up the wifi. Cantennas are amazing things, but very directional. (Another great hack that extends the range by a few degrees is using an old satellite dish with a cantenna. Point the cantenna at the dish it’ll bounce off the dish. )
I can include some links… one moment.
@Kidsandliz excellent router: it says it’s ddwrt compatible. https://slickdeals.net/f/9330575-asus-tm-ac1900-wireless-ac1900-dual-band-gigabit-router-59-free-shipping?src=SiteSearchV2Algo1
I actually use an unmodified version of this router. It’s pretty good. Yugster used to have a netgear nighthawk router with dst they are super expensive at Best Buy but this one was like $100 and it had powerline networking which may work in the building. It’s hard to figure out how to make that work without seeing how it’s setup and how the signal strength is.
Move.
@Pavlov
It’s her Mom’s place.
Might be specialized housing.
@Pavlov Mom can’t move - it is a retirement center that has everything from independent living to hospice that it took her 6 years to get into and they take care of you even if you run out of money so she won’t be living in a box under a bridge, at I don’t know, say 90 or something. And it is the closest one like this to my sister who lives locally. I am trying to move up here, am on the waiting list for two hud housing places near by that aren’t located in slums (both say 3-4 year wait). Also applying for jobs around here…well also still trying to get ones in my field too but that vitae gap due to cancer combined with my age - age discrimination is alive and well in higher ed and they start discriminating at a younger age than the private sector - and a publishing desert - am remedying that but still short one pub to be considered “academically qualified” for the AACSB schools) makes it tough. I asked for a magic wand for Christmas but Santa did not oblige. LOL
@Kidsandliz
Would it be possible for you to get a consulting job? Or do consulting freelance?
I know starting it up would be a bitch.
@f00l I have no clue. Never looked into it. Would prefer a job with benefits. Health insurance is up to $1119/mo with $6000 deductible/out of pocket. Right now that is about what I make (no medicaid expansion in my state). I’d have to be careful that I’d make enough that losing food stamps and subsidized housing didn’t mean making the choice I had to make for nearly 2 years which was health insurance over rent. There is kind of this giant donut hole between qualifying for safety net services and having enough to pay all the bills and eat. Need to be careful not to land in that.
@Kidsandliz @f00l
I. was. not. being. serious.
@Pavlov Then. Why. Say. Anything? Did you think it was funny?
@Kidsandliz is there a Starbucks nearby? I’ve heard they have great benefits, even for part timers… until you can get a better job or do the freelance gig and get benefits from Starbucks?
@craigthom I thought it was funny.
I saw a bunch of people answered me today. I don’t have time to respond as I am out the door shortly (am late actually out the door). Will try to get to this thread at my friend’s house tomorrow. Thanks all for your ideas!!!
You can always try a cantenna
@Kidsandliz
How is cell reception in your Mom’s apt? Do you get reasonable data there? Any chance of using a phone as a hotspot?
I miss clear.com’s offerings.