Using my "thick" kitchen wall as giant reflector

Summary - WRT54GS router in the back half of house. WAP54G access point
running in repeater mode for front half of house. In between is a
"thick" kitchen wall that causes 10's of dB of signal loss.

After banging my head against the wall, something got knocked loose and
I remembered there is a layer of really awful-looking foil wallpaper
underneath the drywall.

The solution is to run a cable past the kitchen wall and run the WAP in
access point mode.

Google Groups link - http://tinyurl.com/44kpk

If I locate the WAP next to the kitchen wall, the foil wallpaper will
act like a giant 8ft x 8 ft flat reflector. Is this a good or bad thing?

Lance
*****

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 08:51:33 -0800, Lance
<lltbhill@link_earth.net> wrote:

>Summary - WRT54GS router in the back half of house. WAP54G access point
>running in repeater mode for front half of house. In between is a
>"thick" kitchen wall that causes 10's of dB of signal loss.
>
>After banging my head against the wall, something got knocked loose and
>I remembered there is a layer of really awful-looking foil wallpaper
>underneath the drywall.
>
>The solution is to run a cable past the kitchen wall and run the WAP in
>access point mode.
>
>Google Groups link - http://tinyurl.com/44kpk
>
>If I locate the WAP next to the kitchen wall, the foil wallpaper will
>act like a giant 8ft x 8 ft flat reflector. Is this a good or bad thing?
>
>Lance

Probably the most practical thing to do is to run a tempory wire
through the house to test the setup and see how it actually
works.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 08:51:33 -0800, Lance <lltbhill@link_earth.net>
wrote:

>Summary - WRT54GS router in the back half of house. WAP54G access point
>running in repeater mode for front half of house. In between is a
>"thick" kitchen wall that causes 10's of dB of signal loss.

Yep. Nice shield room.

>After banging my head against the wall, something got knocked loose

Hopefully, it was something from the wall that came loose, not your
head.

>and
>I remembered there is a layer of really awful-looking foil wallpaper
>underneath the drywall.
>
>The solution is to run a cable past the kitchen wall and run the WAP in
>access point mode.
>
>Google Groups link - http://tinyurl.com/44kpk
>
>If I locate the WAP next to the kitchen wall, the foil wallpaper will
>act like a giant 8ft x 8 ft flat reflector. Is this a good or bad thing?

Good and bad depending on location. The foil will reflect signals,
but there's little control over where they end up. If you're lucky
and have a eliptical, circular, or parabolic kitchen, all the signal
will bounce towards the access point. However, a flat plate reflector
isn't so convenient. A signal might bounce off the wall, but who
knows where it will go. Probably not towards the access point. In
addition, if you have two paths to the access point (one direct and
one via a bounce) you could easily have the two signals cancel,
interfere, or otherwise make things work. Should you get clever and
move the access point back and forth until you find the point of
reinforcement, that will only facilitate communications to one
specific location, and not the entire house.

May I humbly suggest you bash the hole in the wall, run a 2nd access
point, and be done with the problem.



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558