Extending wifi to shop

I've mentioned it before when Keith has brought up the grounding issues. It's real. Seen some funky things because of differential ground potentials over Ethernet. 

This topic is something I think about from time to time at my place.  It would be nice to be able to put on netflix or whatever replaces it in the barn while I'm working on projects.  Here is what I have to work with:

The house with the internet is in the lower left.  The barn is on the right.  There is no line of sight between them.  At this time of year you can kind of see one from the other, but it's not clear and most of the year the trees are full of leaves and you can't see at all.  However, there is a horse shed there at the top center that has electricity.  So I thought maybe I could do something like this (where the red lines signify beams of internet magic).

But based on what recomendations I'm seeing above...would I need 4 of these transmitter/receivers?  Or do they make a repeater station type of thing that could go at the shed in the middle?

And another thing...it seems the ones posted so far are "power over ethernet" powered (something I didn't know the meaning of until this thread) and it would be a pain to power them that way at the mid-point since the horses that occupy that building don't seem interested in netflix or browsing the forums at grassrootsmotorsports.com (no immediate need for a router in the horse shed).  Maybe there are some that can just plug in...I haven't looked too hard yet.

This is all just a when-I-get-around-to-it and if-it's-easy-enough type of project.  I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars on it.  I might spend A hundred dollars on it at some point, though.

In reply to ClemSparks :

Two Loco M2's would probably do the house to the shop for you.  Four M2's or M5's would also work with the horse barn in the middle as a repeater station, one M2 or M5 pointed at each end (house, shop.)  Power over Ethernet means that you just plug the power supply in to the wall and the ethernet cable into the device or a power injector adapter.

In reply to ClemSparks :

You might just want to run a Cat6 cable through the woods in the middle, something might eventually ruin it after a year or two but the cable should cost less than a single wireless device, and the speed and reliability will be better than you can get with wireless. The trickiest part would be crossing the two driveways, you might have to run it through some buried pipe under each driveway. To keep the cable safe in the woods you could try using some HDPE water pipe for sleeving, that stuff is tough and still flexible.

ClemSparks said:

This topic is something I think about from time to time at my place.  It would be nice to be able to put on netflix or whatever replaces it in the barn while I'm working on projects.  Here is what I have to work with:

The house with the internet is in the lower left.  The barn is on the right.  There is no line of sight between them.  At this time of year you can kind of see one from the other, but it's not clear and most of the year the trees are full of leaves and you can't see at all.  However, there is a horse shed there at the top center that has electricity.  So I thought maybe I could do something like this (where the red lines signify beams of internet magic).

 

But based on what recomendations I'm seeing above...would I need 4 of these transmitter/receivers?  Or do they make a repeater station type of thing that could go at the shed in the middle?

And another thing...it seems the ones posted so far are "power over ethernet" powered (something I didn't know the meaning of until this thread) and it would be a pain to power them that way at the mid-point since the horses that occupy that building don't seem interested in netflix or browsing the forums at grassrootsmotorsports.com (no immediate need for a router in the horse shed).  Maybe there are some that can just plug in...I haven't looked too hard yet.

This is all just a when-I-get-around-to-it and if-it's-easy-enough type of project.  I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars on it.  I might spend A hundred dollars on it at some point, though.

"Powered over Ethernet" just means the Ethernet cable carries power. Makes it easier to wire things up because you only have to run one wire instead of two and you don't have to deal with mains voltage, and if you're doing commercial work this is important. For your application, it makes no difference - you'll just have a "power injector" that is basically a wall wart and you'll run an Ethernet cable to your device from it. The Ethernet cable in this case doesn't have to carry data, but it definitely carries power. Like a USB cable charging a phone.

If your limit is $100, I'd be looking at some sort of homebrew antenna on the shop to amplify any stray signals from the house. But that's a pretty minimal budget. I would not be running wires through the woods.

I would not run another wire through the woods either.  I've done that. I ran a CAT5 cable through conduit about 150 ft for one of my security cams.  I lost two very expensive cameras to lightning strikes.  Just a near hit put a big enough surge down the line to blow out the network board in the cameras.  I have a cheap camera there now and network surge/spike arrestors on both ends.  Wouldn't run long lengths like that again. 

Check out something like this, 15dbi weatherproof Wi-Fi antenna. If it can't shoot across the woods by itself, it definitely could get a signal from the barn. 

Thanks for the help folks.

A few things:

• Yeah, I don't really want to string cable.  I'd definitely do without internet in the barn for the time being if it came to that.  Now...if a fence got built between here and there, it might be another subject.  But Mrs. Sparks doesn't have any plans for a horse fence along this route yet, so I'm not going to give her any ideas.
• Thanks for the info about POE and power injectors.  I kinda figured but it's nice to have it spelled out.
• Budget was a little tongue-in-cheek.  I should really be buying project car parts, not wifi antennas.  But in time, this project may move up the list.

A couple questions:

• How does that WAGI antenna compare to the Ubiquiti ones being praised earlier?
• Some seem to think it might be possible to just have an antenna on the house and one at the barn (the big barn where I want internet).  Are there antennas that are better for this type of scenario (430' of distance, no direct line of sight)?  Or is that what the WAGI would be better at than the Ubiquiti?

Thanks folks.  In a conversation about Camber Gain, Brake Bias, or Automotive Plumbing I'm in my element.  WIFI magic..not so much.

Clarified a statement on the PoE cable - the USB charging cable analogy still holds, but the Ethernet cable is still being used for data in almost any scenario :)

The Ubiquiti bridges being discussed earlier were basically very directional little antennas and receivers. Think of them as the wireless equivalent of a chunk of cable. The two stations establish a link and talk to each other directly. I think they can cover a longer distance or deal better with obstructions than just an antenna. They claim 15+ km range on some of them.

If I understand the writeup, the WAGI is a very good antenna which will hopefully sniff out a weak signal coming from the house. It's not paired to anything in particular at the other end, it's just sensitive. My biggest concern with it is that it's a 2.4 GHz antenna, which has less bandwidth available than some other options. That may or may not be a problem for you.

I'd be tempted to contact Ubiquiti with your questions. They're not the cheapest game in town, but they might be able to get you looking at the right sort of product for your application at least. They used to have a decision guide that helped. Keep in mind that street value of their products tends to be lower than MSRP.

The Ubiquiti Loco Mx's (M2, M5) are commercial grade stuff.  Transceivers set up as routers and specifically designed to bridge long distances.  I think the M5's maximum range with line of sight is something like 30 miles.  The M2's do better through obstacles.

Thanks again, all!