Campground nightmare, need help with Wi-fi signal

We live in an RV, we have 3 computers, all laptops without an external
antenna connector.

We travel, and constantly find RV parks where the signal is week and
fluxuating all the time. Sometimes to the point of no signal, it makes
working the internet very difficult.

My question, and what I'm thinking. To accomodate multpile laptops,
get a high gain directional exterior antenna, mount it to the RV. Run a
cable from there to a central interior location, then attach a short
basic Wifi antenna like you might find on a wireless router or PCLAN
card to the cable and mount it inside. I'm wondering if this would work
to make our RV more of a "Hot spot" for our laptops.

Yesterday I got fed up with getting cut off every 30 seconds, so I
took a Linksys router antenna and a piece of my wife's jewelry wire to
connect it to the bedroom TV coax cable. I know it is a complete
wavelength mismatch and the impedence is probably wrong, but it seems to
have improved my connection to the point of almost tolerable.

I'm thinking if I can amplify the signal with a high gain antenna,
and wire that signal into the RV and focus that through a typical Wifi
antenna, we should get a stronger and cleaner signal that our built in
laptop antenna's can get happy with. I need to know if this will work
before spending the money on parts.

Am I wrong here, or will this work for our needs?

Thank You for any input,
Dan


------------------------------------------------------------------------
View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=29003
http://www.wirelessforums.org

dano11 wrote:
> We live in an RV, we have 3 computers, all laptops without an external
> antenna connector.
>
> We travel, and constantly find RV parks where the signal is week and
> fluxuating all the time. Sometimes to the point of no signal, it makes
> working the internet very difficult.
>
> My question, and what I'm thinking. To accomodate multpile laptops,
> get a high gain directional exterior antenna, mount it to the RV. Run a
> cable from there to a central interior location, then attach a short
> basic Wifi antenna like you might find on a wireless router or PCLAN
> card to the cable and mount it inside. I'm wondering if this would work
> to make our RV more of a "Hot spot" for our laptops.
>
> Yesterday I got fed up with getting cut off every 30 seconds, so I
> took a Linksys router antenna and a piece of my wife's jewelry wire to
> connect it to the bedroom TV coax cable. I know it is a complete
> wavelength mismatch and the impedence is probably wrong, but it seems to
> have improved my connection to the point of almost tolerable.
>
> I'm thinking if I can amplify the signal with a high gain antenna,
> and wire that signal into the RV and focus that through a typical Wifi
> antenna, we should get a stronger and cleaner signal that our built in
> laptop antenna's can get happy with. I need to know if this will work
> before spending the money on parts.
>

My suggestion,
An outside antenna hooked to a bridge, and that bridge hooked to a
wireless router inside your RV through the lan port. You might want to
not use encryption on your router, that way your neighbors will benefit
from your hotspot.

dano11 wrote:
> We live in an RV, we have 3 computers, all laptops without an external
> antenna connector.
>
> We travel, and constantly find RV parks where the signal is week and
> fluxuating all the time. Sometimes to the point of no signal, it
> makes working the internet very difficult.
>
> My question, and what I'm thinking. To accomodate multpile laptops,
> get a high gain directional exterior antenna, mount it to the RV.
> Run a cable from there to a central interior location, then attach a
> short basic Wifi antenna like you might find on a wireless router or
> PCLAN card to the cable and mount it inside. I'm wondering if this
> would work to make our RV more of a "Hot spot" for our laptops.
>
> Yesterday I got fed up with getting cut off every 30 seconds, so I
> took a Linksys router antenna and a piece of my wife's jewelry wire to
> connect it to the bedroom TV coax cable. I know it is a complete
> wavelength mismatch and the impedence is probably wrong, but it seems
> to have improved my connection to the point of almost tolerable.
>
> I'm thinking if I can amplify the signal with a high gain antenna,
> and wire that signal into the RV and focus that through a typical Wifi
> antenna, we should get a stronger and cleaner signal that our built in
> laptop antenna's can get happy with. I need to know if this will work
> before spending the money on parts.
>
> Am I wrong here, or will this work for our needs?
>
> Thank You for any input,
> Dan
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=29003
> http://www.wirelessforums.org

You may want to try something a bit more normal than canabalize your wifes
jewelry...
I had the same sort of problem in my rv, and even though the system already
had wireless built in, no law says you HAVE to use that one only... I got
the external usb/wifi thing, just turn off/disable the internal one, and use
the USB/external one in the RV (or whenever I need a better signal), neat
part was I could unplug it and still take the laptop (with the builtin
wireless) with me when I left the RV...

Just to be specific (this is what I have, about $50, lots of manufacturers
make them, I just happen to have this one, usually available at places like
best buy, walmart, circuit city etc )
at
<http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout &cid=1115416827622&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVis itorWrapper&lid=2762262965B08>

Wireless-G Portable USB Adapter
The easy way to connect your desktop or notebook to a high-speed wireless
network

I Use it with a USB exstension cable (about $20 for a 12 footer, actually
two to give me 24 feet), and just place it in the window/out the window/on
the dash/on the roof/duct taped to my tv antenna ... They make several
different USB units, the local store just happened to have this on the shelf
....

Very cheap, works very well, and highly recomennded

(ps, if you happen to have the usenet group Rec.Outdoors.RV-Travel, check
there, a lot of people use wireless in their rv's)

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:19:45 -0400, dano11
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>We live in an RV, we have 3 computers, all laptops without an external
>antenna connector.
>
>We travel, and constantly find RV parks where the signal is week and
>fluxuating all the time. Sometimes to the point of no signal, it makes
>working the internet very difficult.
>
>My question, and what I'm thinking. To accomodate multpile laptops,
>get a high gain directional exterior antenna, mount it to the RV. Run a
>cable from there to a central interior location, then attach a short
>basic Wifi antenna like you might find on a wireless router or PCLAN
>card to the cable and mount it inside. I'm wondering if this would work
>to make our RV more of a "Hot spot" for our laptops.
>
>Yesterday I got fed up with getting cut off every 30 seconds, so I
>took a Linksys router antenna and a piece of my wife's jewelry wire to
>connect it to the bedroom TV coax cable. I know it is a complete
>wavelength mismatch and the impedence is probably wrong, but it seems to
>have improved my connection to the point of almost tolerable.
>
>I'm thinking if I can amplify the signal with a high gain antenna,
>and wire that signal into the RV and focus that through a typical Wifi
>antenna, we should get a stronger and cleaner signal that our built in
>laptop antenna's can get happy with. I need to know if this will work
>before spending the money on parts.
>
>Am I wrong here, or will this work for our needs?
>
>Thank You for any input,
>Dan
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=29003
>http://www.wirelessforums.org

If you Google 'usb antenna' you will find a number of off-the shelf
and do-it yourself solutions.

My favorite is the WaveRV -- an omnidirectional antenna / usb adapter
/ amplifier combination. It's a bit expensive, but it really seems to
work. Look at:

http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/waverv.php

for more information.

Ken

"curly Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>
> My suggestion,
> An outside antenna hooked to a bridge, and that bridge hooked to a
> wireless router inside your RV through the lan port. You might want to not
> use encryption on your router, that way your neighbors will benefit from
> your hotspot.

I like this idea simply because it offers more flexibility. The usb options
don't easily allow for connecting more than one computer very easily.
With a bridge and a directional antenna you can assure yourself that you
will always have a good strong signal however you could use it with an omni
directional antenna.
You could use a device that was designed to bridge or even one of the
linksys (wrt54gl) or buffalo (whr series) wireless routers flashed with
DD-WRT to establish a client bridge connection to the camp ground ap. You
would then feed from this using ethernet cable to a standard access
router/ap for you to do what you want with such as plug in additional
ethernet devices into the switch or use it wirelessly and encrypt.



A antenna, parts to connect that antenna to one router/bridge and an
additional router for local access and misc. cables and some configuring are
all that are required.


Adaiir

On Sep 15, 1:55 pm, curly Bill <sc...@anon.com> wrote:

> An outside antenna hooked to a bridge, and that bridge hooked to a
> wireless router inside your RV through the lan port. You might want to
> not use encryption on your router, that way your neighbors will benefit
> from your hotspot.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -


This is the way to go. There have been various discussions of this
solution and it's variations here before. A quick search for RV in
this group gives this long thread (your solution is in there)

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.i...&lnk=nl&hl=en&


Two big variables:
1) Put the antenna outside and the bridge inside - connect with low
loss cable to bridge. OR Put bridge outside in a sealed box with
antenna hooked up directly to it to avoid any antenna cable loss and
then run an ethernet cable to the inside.

2) Connect your various pcs to the bridge by ethernet cable, that is,
run cables around your RV and plugin wherever you are. OR Attach an
access point (cheap wireless router) to the ethernet cable and connect
wirelessly to your personal access point.

Drawback of the ethernet bridge vs the USB adapter solution mentioned
is that it takes a bit more attention to connect to the new hot spot
each time you arrive. But you only have to do this to the bridge, the
laptops will always be configured the same.
Advantage, as stated by another is that you don't need a USB client
adapter for each laptop.

Steve