Anybody like me and live in a real old house with walls as hard as rocks?

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch. I have a big metal door and like i said the walls are hard as a rock.

I can barely get wifi to my front cameras. I even tried swapping out other routers and same deal. Also i have to use 2.5ghz for my dzees cameras.

Anyone have this issue with wifi not getting through? should i spend 40 bucks on a repeater that plugs in the wall?

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WiFi-Range-Extender-EX5000/dp/B083R46CV8/

https://www.amazon.com/Wifi-Extender-Booster-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B08RHD97QY ---
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On 13 Oct 2023, MRO said the following...

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch.

if your access point has removable antennas that are SMA you could maybe get
a directional antenna and point it at the front of the house. then you could probably get wifi in a car out on the street too..

i feel like a repeater might add latency vs just running some ethernet and putting another AP closer..

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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to All on Fri Oct 13 2023 12:18 am

Anybody like me and live in a real old house with walls as hard as rocks?

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch. I have a big metal door and like i said the walls are hard as a rock.

I can barely get wifi to my front cameras. I even tried swapping out other routers and same deal. Also i have to use 2.5ghz for my dzees cameras.

Anyone have this issue with wifi not getting through? should i spend 40 bucks on a repeater that plugs in the wall?

A wifi repeater might help.

I've used powerline ethernet adapters in the past. A couple of those and a wifi access point that plugs into ethernet would probably work too (aside from a wifi repeater). The last powerline ethernet adapters I was using were a pair of TP-Link AV2000, which I thought were fairly good:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H74VKZU

The thing about any networking devices that run over your power lines is that your power lines can make a big difference in their speed and how reliable they can work. I used a couple of powerline ethernet adapters at my house (my previous place I lived), and sometimes they'd randomly get disconnected. At my current place, I never saw any disconnections.

I think a better option would be to run ethernet if possible.

Nightfox

---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to All on Fri Oct 13 2023 12:18 am

Anybody like me and live in a real old house with walls as hard as rocks?

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch. I have a big metal door and like i said the walls are hard as a rock.

I can barely get wifi to my front cameras. I even tried swapping out other routers and same deal. Also i have to use 2.5ghz for my dzees cameras.

Anyone have this issue with wifi not getting through? should i spend 40 bucks on a repeater that plugs in the wall?

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WiFi-Range-Extender-EX5000/dp/B083R46CV8/

https://www.amazon.com/Wifi-Extender-Booster-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B08RHD97QY

I used power-line network adapters to create WiFi bridges and repeaters and the best solutions I've found are the mesh network systems:
https://www.netgear.com/home/wifi/mesh/ https://store.google.com/us/magazine/compare_routers?hl=en-US&pli=1 https://www.amazon.com/eero-reliable-gigabit-connect-Coverage/dp/B091G68F8C
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On Fri Oct 13 04:52:00 2023, fusion wrote to MRO <=-

On 13 Oct 2023, MRO said the following...

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of
sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch.

if your access point has removable antennas that are SMA you could maybe get a directional antenna and point it at the front of the house. then you could probably get wifi in a car out on the street too..

That would work potentially.

another option would maybe see if you can get some of those powerline extenders. they use the mains wiring of the house to "extend" the cabling. you plug an ethernet cord in each side and then on the far end you could put an AP.

now the speeds won't be great, but short of running a cat6 line across it's not that big a deal. depending on the house of course.

but if you were going to go the cat6 route. PULL TWO at least, and then put a switch at the far end. that way you can have a load balance across the two switches which will help with bandwidth and you then have at least a backup just in case.

OR you could just run a fiber lol especially if you have a switch with SFP ports or just use media converters. That will deifnately help with the bandwidth. even at 1 gig

i feel like a repeater might add latency vs just running some ethernet and putting another AP closer..

for a camera linke a ring or doorbell camera it's not that big a deal. I use one for the same reason and have no issues looking at all my outside cameras on the other side of the house

Charlie
The FBO BBS - bbs.thefbo.us:2323 - IPv4/6

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: fusion to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:52 am

if your access point has removable antennas that are SMA you could maybe get a directional antenna and point it at the front of the house. then you could probably get wifi in a car out on the street too..

i feel like a repeater might add latency vs just running some ethernet and putting another AP closer..

yeah but i do have the ap pretty close. the freaking walls are just blocking everything. also the downstairs tv picks up the wifi fine and that's only a few feet from the porch. it also seems to vary with the weather.

perhaps a neighbor is on the same channel. i tried moving things around but i didn't notice anything. this is an intermittant issue.
---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 09:08 am

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H74VKZU

The thing about any networking devices that run over your power lines is that your power lines can make a big difference in their speed and how reliable they can work. I used a couple of powerline ethernet adapters at my house (my previous place I lived), and sometimes they'd randomly get disconnected. At my current place, I never saw any disconnections.

I think a better option would be to run ethernet if possible.

yeah i already ran ethernet downstairs for the 2nd access point.
so it's either my thick ass walls or some other device interfering with
the 2.5 band. there's a wifi access points near me so that might be it.
---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: Digital Man to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 10:56 am

I used power-line network adapters to create WiFi bridges and repeaters and the best solutions I've found are the mesh network systems: https://www.netgear.com/home/wifi/mesh/

oh boy those are expensive.

i'm going to have to do some experimenting. our houses are close together and maybe there's inteferance. it could be because my main router is broadcasting 2.5 as well. i need to disable that and see if that helps.
---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:42 pm

yeah i already ran ethernet downstairs for the 2nd access point. so it's either my thick ass walls or some other device interfering with the 2.5 band. there's a wifi access points near me so that might be it.

One thing that could help might be to change the wifi channel that your router is using. If there are many other wifi access points in your area, using a different channel can help deal with interference, especially if everyone else is using the default wifi channel. I've heard it recommended to use either channel 1, 6, or 11 since they don't overlap in frequencies.

Also, there are smartphone apps that will scan the wifi frequencies near you and show you which ones are being used.

Nightfox

---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:07 pm

One thing that could help might be to change the wifi channel that your router is using. If there are many other wifi access points in your area, using a different channel can help deal with interference, especially if everyone else is using the default wifi channel. I've heard it recommended to use either channel 1, 6, or 11 since they don't overlap in frequencies.

i've been monkeying around with that. hasn't really helped much.
i'll try some wifi scanner apps.
just tried one and the graph shows that my arlo hub's wifi is almost on top of my 2.5 wifi in channel and strength. I changed that and moved my channels to a less congested frequency. didn't really help my problem, though.


---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Oct 13 2023 21:23:59

Remember in 2005 with 802.11b wifi, devices would sometimes disconnect and the wireless AP would need a power cycle. I hated linksys and those commercial Cisco access points with the IOS firmware. Now it seems wifi has improved, some of the TP link units are impressive, however something else has happened. Now everyones TV for the moment is playing netflix and other streaming video services over wifi. Some wireless AP units have a wireless monitor which allows you to glance at the network congestion on all the various radio channels. Im sure there might be a phone app, but the most comprehensive will be a program that is rather close to the physical hardware. I'd assume its netflix, especially if it works great until the evening when people get home. What i have done to mitigate wifi problems is to use ethernet when possible. You can also take apart a Powerline AV500 and solder the wires coming from the little isolation coil to a simple rj11 phone cable... i used the outer pins (black yellow), or line 2. Then do it to another Powerline AV500. Put one downstairs and one upstairs, or wherever an AP is needed. Use the existing phone jacks in your house. Ive done this with success. Dont use the device as designed, it suck, especially if both circuits used, are on different legs of the power meter. A direct connection works so well with phone wires. Alternately, MoCAnet adapters work really well. You can also use VDSL adapter pairs with 1 pair of phone wires. These solutions work best with apartment dwellings. If you can put holes in things, i'd use ethernet. Buy some TPlink Access Points if your existing AP's are giving you grief. Sometimes its the AP that is the problem or its shitty switching power supply in its wall wort.

---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to fusion on Fri Oct 13 2023 16:38:55

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: fusion to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:52 am

if your access point has removable antennas that are SMA you could maybe get a directional antenna and point it at the front of the house. then you could probably get wifi in a car out on the street too..
i feel like a repeater might add latency vs just running some ethernet and putting another AP closer..

yeah but i do have the ap pretty close. the freaking walls are just blocking everything. also the downstairs tv picks up the wifi fine and that's only a few feet from the porch. it also seems to vary with
the weather.
perhaps a neighbor is on the same channel. i tried moving things around but i didn't notice anything. this is an intermittant issue.

this is going to sound stupid, but do you get much change in humidity inside? i say that because humidity can change properties ... usually outdoor links obviously are affected a lot, but if the walls are wet outside that can affect it too. especially if they're really thick or made up of something like coquina rock/sandstone type rock.

how thick are the walls? what are they made from? any way you can put some pics up that we can take a butchers at?

and you say the ap is pretty close... define.. close :D

charlie

---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Oct 13 2023 16:42:15

Re: old houses and wifi
By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 09:08 am

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H74VKZU
The thing about any networking devices that run over your power lines is that your power lines can make a big difference in their speed and how reliable they can work. I used a couple of powerline
ethernet adapters at my house (my previous place I lived), and sometimes they'd randomly get disconnected. At my current place, I never saw any disconnections.
I think a better option would be to run ethernet if possible.

yea for sure.. it's definately hit n miss, but technology nowadays has made them a lot more robust for sure.

yeah i already ran ethernet downstairs for the 2nd access point.
so it's either my thick ass walls or some other device interfering with
the 2.5 band. there's a wifi access points near me so that might be it.

do you have a wifi scanner by chance? heck better yet, do you have an SDR? you can see just what is there. dont forget it's not just computers that use the 2.4gig band... there's baby monitors and cameras etc and those chinesium ones dont care if they're in the wifi portion of the band.

for exampl. stick a hobby 2.4 gig or 5.8 gig video receiver and drive around the neighbourhood.. you'd bee surprised what cameras you can find lol

charlie

---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to MRO on Sat Oct 14 2023 10:47 am

this is going to sound stupid, but do you get much change in humidity inside? i say that because humidity can change properties ... usually outdoor links obviously are affected a lot, but if the walls are wet outside

probably. it's an old house and we leave the windows open sometimes.

how thick are the walls? what are they made from? any way you can put some pics up that we can take a butchers at?

I don't know i didn't drill a hole in a wall and i don't know what they are made from. i would assume thick plaster and lath. the house is like 1900's.
I have bent a nail trying to hammer in nails in some places.

if i took a picture of the wall it would look like a wall.

and you say the ap is pretty close... define.. close :D

like 60-70 ft for downstairs.
upstairs one is directly above it and works the same sometimes.
it fluctuates.

in the back i have a camera even farther away that is on my garage pointed at the house. the signal is listed as best possible. it's even farther than the cameras in the front.

Also i have old aluminum siding.
so maybe the front wall of my house is super shielded.
---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to MRO on Sat Oct 14 2023 10:51 am

By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 09:08 am

yea for sure.. it's definately hit n miss, but technology nowadays has made them a lot more robust for sure.

you're quoting nightfox and replying to me.

do you have a wifi scanner by chance?

i have a phone app.

heck better yet, do you have an SDR?

what the hell is that.

the 2.4gig band... there's baby monitors and cameras etc and those chinesium

we have a baby monitor upstairs too.

for exampl. stick a hobby 2.4 gig or 5.8 gig video receiver and drive around

I don't even know where to get one of those.

I think i'm going to get a plug in repeater and put it right by the
front door.

btw, you need to change your bbs tagline
https://i.imgur.com/D6EPbXl.png
---
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MRO wrote to Digital Man <=-

I used power-line network adapters to create WiFi bridges and repeaters and the best solutions I've found are the mesh network systems: https://www.netgear.com/home/wifi/mesh/

oh boy those are expensive.

I ran powerline for years, as long as you have one breaker box they're
great. I have 2 boxes, and signals on two powerline adapters on
different boxes would drop every 2 weeks or so, requiring me to go to
two floors and power-cycle them.

I think I paid $35 for the first two, and bought another for about the
same price. Got about 100 mbps between the two on the same box, 40 when traveling across breaker boxes.

If you have a high-end thrift store around, keep your eyes out. I just
saw a 4 node orbi system for $79, bet it works great. This place often
had cisco and fortinet gear and rack-mounted switches - not your normal, run-of-the-mill Goodwill.





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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 16:55:49

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to MRO on Sat Oct 14 2023 10:47 am

how thick are the walls? what are they made from? any way you can put some pics up that we can take a butchers at?

I don't know i didn't drill a hole in a wall and i don't know what they are made from. i would assume thick plaster and lath. the house is like 1900's.
I have bent a nail trying to hammer in nails in some places.

i've done that before now.

and you say the ap is pretty close... define.. close :D

like 60-70 ft for downstairs.
upstairs one is directly above it and works the same sometimes. it fluctuates.

60-70 feet should be ok. it's at the limit for sure though

in the back i have a camera even farther away that is on my garage pointed at the house. the signal is listed as best possible. it's even farther than the cameras in the
front. Also i have old aluminum siding. so maybe the front wall of my house is super shielded.

the siding could definately be the issue. I would try definately a repeater about halfway between the AP and the camera.

Charlie

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: poindexter FORTRAN to MRO on Sat Oct 14 2023 08:57 am

MRO wrote to Digital Man <=-

I used power-line network adapters to create WiFi bridges and repeaters and the best solutions I've found are the mesh network systems: https://www.netgear.com/home/wifi/mesh/

oh boy those are expensive.

I ran powerline for years, as long as you have one breaker box they're great. I have 2 boxes, and signals on two powerline adapters on
different boxes would drop every 2 weeks or so, requiring me to go to
two floors and power-cycle them.

well i want a wifi repeater that i can just plug in.
i'll see if i can get something to work. my house is too old to be running signals through the power lines.
---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 04:55 pm

like 60-70 ft for downstairs.
upstairs one is directly above it and works the same sometimes.
it fluctuates.

I have a similar set up and had similar issues. I literally ran a cat 5 upstairs and plugged in a ubiquity AP and never looked back. It's surprising how there seems to be a WIFI shield between upstairs and downstairs. It's unbelievable really so I feel for you.

---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Oct 16 2023 02:28 am

well i want a wifi repeater that i can just plug in.
i'll see if i can get something to work. my house is too old to be running signals through the power lines.

I swapped out my ubiquity AP recently. I think I stil have the old one if you want to try it out and see if it works you can have the old one. The old one was still working okay.

---
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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 16:59:24

Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to MRO on Sat Oct 14 2023 10:51 am

By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Oct 13 2023 09:08 am

yea for sure.. it's definately hit n miss, but technology nowadays has made them a lot more robust for sure.

you're quoting nightfox and replying to me.

yea i goofed :D i saw his reply to your reply first lol

do you have a wifi scanner by chance?

i have a phone app.

that might work, at least it would give you relative signal strengh

heck better yet, do you have an SDR?

what the hell is that.

geeky version of a scanner :D

the 2.4gig band... there's baby monitors and cameras etc and those chinesium

we have a baby monitor upstairs too.

i've seen some that completely splatter the lower half of the wifi spectrum. the apartments we used to have people were always complaining that the wifi sucked. didnt help there were 7 routers on the same channel, but what was worse, one of the neighbours bought some "kiddie-cams" that used 2.4 gig and their radios were well.... not well made and splattered the first 4 channels on the wifi band. we all banded together and bought them a new one and never had any issues after that and since once everyone moved the wifi router channels

I movedc out a month later lol

for exampl. stick a hobby 2.4 gig or 5.8 gig video receiver and drive around

I don't even know where to get one of those.

I think i'm going to get a plug in repeater and put it right by the
front door.

that would probably be your best bet.. I have to have one here for a camera that's on the garage and this is just a regular single-level home. but the garage is on the opposite side of the house and while it works without it, i get less dropouts since i put one in.

btw, you need to change your bbs tagline

yea i know just havent gotten around to it (amongst other things)

charlie

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: The Lizard Master to MRO on Mon Oct 16 2023 08:19 am

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 04:55 pm

like 60-70 ft for downstairs.
upstairs one is directly above it and works the same sometimes.
it fluctuates.

I have a similar set up and had similar issues. I literally ran a cat 5 upstairs and plugged in a ubiquity AP and never looked back. It's surprising how there seems to be a WIFI shield between upstairs and downstairs. It's unbelievable really so I feel for you.

yeah i ran one downstairs.
so i think i have a lot of factors here. tons of neighbors nearby with wifi, my own devices interfering, and old house with thick walls and siding.
---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: The Lizard Master to MRO on Mon Oct 16 2023 08:27 am

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Oct 16 2023 02:28 am

well i want a wifi repeater that i can just plug in.
i'll see if i can get something to work. my house is too old to be running signals through the power lines.

I swapped out my ubiquity AP recently. I think I stil have the old one if you want to try it out and see if it works you can have the old one. The old one was still working okay.

that's very nice of you but i think i'm going to get a repeater and put it across the house downstairs. i'll also have to do some more testing.
---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 04:55 pm

at the house. the signal is listed as best possible. it's even farther than the cameras in the front.

Also i have old aluminum siding.
so maybe the front wall of my house is super shielded.

so i turned off the baby monitor and nothing helped.
then i'm out there running my wifi scanner app and i see how super saturated the area is due to the mini mansion next door that has a bunch of tenants.

so i'm going to go with having a repeater near my front door.

I didn't always have this issue but it appears that my neighbors are running a lot of wifi devices.
---
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to The Lizard Master on Mon Oct 16 2023 09:10 pm

My house isn't too old (20 years) but it is 84 ft. long. My cablemode is in the garage on one end of the hose where my office is located so all of my stuff is wired but my wife and grandson use wireless. I put 2 TPLink repeaters in the house... a 600 at the far end and a 450 in the middle. My Blink doorbell and cameras are all wireless along with the phones and such. I have almost zero problems with this setup.

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: The Lizard Master to MRO on Mon Oct 16 2023 08:19:03

Re: Re: old houses and wifi

I have a similar set up and had similar issues. I literally ran a cat 5 upstairs and plugged in a ubiquity AP and never looked back. It's surprising how there seems to be a WIFI shield between upstairs and downstairs.
It's unbelievable really so I feel for you.

yea, You would be surprised how much a piece of AC ducting reflects the signal.

charlie

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to all on Tue Oct 17 2023 02:27:56

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 04:55 pm

<CUT>

so i turned off the baby monitor and nothing helped.
then i'm out there running my wifi scanner app and i see how super saturated the area is due to the mini mansion next door that has a bunch of tenants.
so i'm going to go with having a repeater near my front door.
I didn't always have this issue but it appears that my neighbors are running a lot of wifi devices.

yea plus probably runnin whatever devices/routers they have at full power, yet if they dropped the power down a little their wifi would run even better as the APs
aren't "Yelling" at each other.

Charlie

---
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On 17 Oct 2023, Charles Blackburn said the following...

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to all on Tue Oct 17 2023 02:27:56

By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Sat Oct 14 2023 04:55 pm

then i'm out there running my wifi scanner app and i see how super satu the area is due to the mini mansion next door that has a bunch of tenan so i'm going to go with having a repeater near my front door.
I didn't always have this issue but it appears that my neighbors are ru a lot of wifi devices.

yea plus probably runnin whatever devices/routers they have at full
power, yet if they dropped the power down a little their wifi would run even better as the APs
aren't "Yelling" at each other.

we're basically having this exact conversation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5KALalvLXY

seems the whole channel has some good stuff

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi

Charles Blackburn wrote to The Lizard Master <=-

yea, You would be surprised how much a piece of AC ducting reflects the signal.

I have several layers of soundproofing between floors, and it kills of
wifi.

My kids' rooms are downstairs, not far from my router -- but there's a
breaker box between my son's room and the AP - one room gets 30 mbps,
his gets 3...

I'm in the "if possible, run ethernet any way possible between floors
and chuck a cheap router on the other end of the cable" non-mesh
network. :)

I tried mesh, I tried wireiess extenders, I tried powerline - each
worked to some extent - but being able to have a router for my home
office with VLANs and to extend wifi, and backhaul the connection over
gigabit ethernet is a godsend.




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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: fusion to Charles Blackburn on Wed Oct 18 2023 09:35:00

On 17 Oct 2023, Charles Blackburn said the following...

yea plus probably runnin whatever devices/routers they have at full power, yet if they dropped the power down a little their wifi would run even better as the APs
aren't "Yelling" at each other.

we're basically having this exact conversation:

<CUT>

never surprises me that most routers default to "full beans" ... but he is kinda wrong as well...

just because the wifi router is sending at 100mW and his phone only uses 20mW is not everything.... beleive me... 20mW is good enough to go at least 1/2 a mile with decent antennas.

there are so many reasons as to why a phone/device would be disconnecting from the AP and so forth. the main cause of stuff like this is interference from other routers/devices etc. if you sit and watch the video, he was like... "i forgot to turn on the second router/AP".... this was the reason why his phone kept disconnecting lol.

Charlie

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Charles Blackburn on Wed Oct 18 2023 08:29:00

Charles Blackburn wrote to The Lizard Master <=-

yea, You would be surprised how much a piece of AC ducting reflects the signal.

I have several layers of soundproofing between floors, and it kills of
wifi.

yea i know that feeling... i use RF all the time at work and many times i've been to a site that they've been sold something wireless i get there for a survey/install and im like, yea this ain't gunna work.

the usual issue is people having a building made from solid reinforced concrete aka Tilt Wall... or they have a steel roof and expect the low power signal to go through that and also down 3 floors as well.

I tried mesh, I tried wireiess extenders, I tried powerline - each
worked to some extent - but being able to have a router for my home
office with VLANs and to extend wifi, and backhaul the connection over gigabit ethernet is a godsend.

yea VLANs are great for segregation, but the problem is if you have something that's multicast (eg HDHomerun in my case), they can't cross subnets which sucks lol

charlie

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to fusion on Wed Oct 18 2023 04:20 pm

just because the wifi router is sending at 100mW and his phone only uses 20mW is not everything.... beleive me... 20mW is good enough to go at least 1/2 a mile with decent antennas.

are you saying a wifi router will transmit half a mile? NO way.

from the AP and so forth. the main cause of stuff like this is interference from other routers/devices etc. if you sit and watch the video, he was like... "i forgot to turn on the second router/AP".... this was the reason why his phone kept disconnecting lol.

i just skimmed it mostly but he said when he turned on his other router that's when things improved when he went to the back yard. he has too many devices and needed to split it between the two routers. he also messed around with router 1 when experimenting before this issue and increased the transmit power and that didn't help.
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Charles Blackburn wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

yea VLANs are great for segregation, but the problem is if you have something that's multicast (eg HDHomerun in my case), they can't cross subnets which sucks lol

I have a homelab that I want to segment out, and I've always wanted to
segment my IoT devices into their own network.

For most home uses, VLANs are probably overkill.



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On 19 Oct 2023, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

Charles Blackburn wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

yea VLANs are great for segregation, but the problem is if you have something that's multicast (eg HDHomerun in my case), they can't cros subnets which sucks lol

I have a homelab that I want to segment out, and I've always wanted to segment my IoT devices into their own network.

For most home uses, VLANs are probably overkill.

yeah, depending on the devices i might firewall off their internet access.. or put them on a network with no internet at all.

i also have all the devices on my network labeled in iptraf.. just watch the lan station monitor for new stuff and if something can't be accounted for i get suspicious ;) that's how i found out one of my tvs was calling home even when it was off.. it's built in roku was pretty old so i ended up just taking out the wifi password on there.

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fusion wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

i also have all the devices on my network labeled in iptraf.. just
watch the lan station monitor for new stuff and if something can't be accounted for i get suspicious ;) that's how i found out one of my tvs
was calling home even when it was off.. it's built in roku was pretty
old so i ended up just taking out the wifi password on there.

I bought a Synology router, it's got some nice security features -
although with the threat prevention tool, most of the attacks stopped
are attacks against the port they leave open for remote management.

It does have a nightly report that gets emailed that shows new devices
that connected in the last 24 hours - it's how I realized that iphones
and ipads by default randomize the MAC address.



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On 22 Oct 2023, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

It does have a nightly report that gets emailed that shows new devices that connected in the last 24 hours - it's how I realized that iphones
and ipads by default randomize the MAC address.

hey that's pretty slick. i think i'm going to implement that on mine too.

not sure what i think about the iphone MAC addresses.. great for privacy on public networks but that's pretty annoying for the network admin if that person is me lol

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: poindexter FORTRAN to fusion on Sun Oct 22 2023 09:36 am

I bought a Synology router, it's got some nice security

This article is talking about a Synology diskstation and not a
router, but interesting nonetheless, I think...

https://securityaffairs.com/152645

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Hello pF!

It does have a nightly report that gets emailed that shows
new devices that connected in the last 24 hours - it's how
I realized that iphones and ipads by default randomize the
MAC address.

Does it ever reuse the previous randomized MAC addresses? I
also thought MAC addresses were supposed to be unique to each
device, so eventually they would run out or conflict with
another device elsewhere?


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Ogg wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Does it ever reuse the previous randomized MAC addresses? I
also thought MAC addresses were supposed to be unique to each
device, so eventually they would run out or conflict with
another device elsewhere?

MACs are supposed to be unique. The first 3 hex pairs are assigned by manufacturers, so if you pick a non-assigned set, you can pick a random
MAC and be pretty sure you're not going to run into a conflict.

I don't know if it changes the MAC every time you connect, or only if
you forget/connect for the first time.



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Phigan wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

I bought a Synology router, it's got some nice security

This article is talking about a Synology diskstation and not a
router, but interesting nonetheless, I think...

https://securityaffairs.com/152645

Sounds like it was patched in June 2023, but the article came out in
October?

Synology diskstations are nice. You can run an entire homelab with
email, web services, photo, file, Active directory, DNS and calendar
sharing and run containers all on top of a hardware NAS. If I were
running a small company and not wanting to use cloud services, they'd
rock.

I set up small businesses and startups back in the early 2000s, a
Synology would replace a lot of the work I did with Linux from scratch. Nowadays, I think a company would have to have a really good reason not
to just go with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.



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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to Charles Blackburn on Thu Oct 19 2023 03:17 am

Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Charles Blackburn to fusion on Wed Oct 18 2023 04:20 pm

just because the wifi router is sending at 100mW and his phone only uses 20mW is not everything.... beleive me... 20mW is good enough to go at least 1/2 a mile with decent antennas.

are you saying a wifi router will transmit half a mile? NO way.

from the AP and so forth. the main cause of stuff like this is interference from other routers/devices etc. if you sit and watch the video, he was like... "i forgot to turn on the second router/AP".... this was the reason why his phone kept disconnecting lol.

i just skimmed it mostly but he said when he turned on his other router that's when things improved when he went to the back yard. he has too many devices and needed to split it between the two routers. he also messed around with router 1 when experimenting before this issue and increased the transmit power and that didn't help.

Well i got a cheap 35 dollar extender with good reviews.

It worked well for one camera but for the other one in the same vacinity it only gave it one bar.

i think it's my big metal door that blocks a lot. and damn there are a LOT of 2.4 wifi aps when i walk outside. so very congested here.

→
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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: fusion to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Oct 22 2023 08:40 pm

not sure what i think about the iphone MAC addresses.. great for privacy on

I have a LAN for myself at home and then a LAN for the rest of the family (including a separate virtual VLAN) and this is one of the reasons.

My smartphone can be configured to use random MAC on public networks and staticMAC at home.

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Phigan on Mon Oct 23 2023 06:48 am

Nowadays, I think a company would have to have a really good reason not
to just go with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

It is illegal to host your customer's data with an American company if you are in Spain.

It is still a common practice, but they can crush you quite hard for this sortof thing and there are some ugly precendents, so I think I would rather
recomend to keep everything on-prem.

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Oct 25 2023 01:04 pm

Nowadays, I think a company would have to have a really good reason not to
just go with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

It is still a common practice, but they can crush you quite hard for this sortof thing and there are some ugly precendents, so I think I would rather recomend to keep everything on-prem.

Is the issue with the company being American, or where the data is located? Hosting services I've looked at typically have data centers in various locations around the world, and they can let you specify where you want the data hosted (they often say it's for speed and where you expect most of your users to be).

Or when you say "on-prem", do you mean within the offices of the company itself?

Nightfox

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Arelor wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

It is illegal to host your customer's data with an American company if
you are in Spain.

An American company, or an American company with your data hosted in
the US?

If truly the former, that would eliminate most if not all cloud
hosting. If the latter, Amazon and Google have the ability to host your
data exclusively in regions where GDPR is in effect.




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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Nightfox to Arelor on Wed Oct 25 2023 12:40 pm

Is the issue with the company being American, or where the data is located? > s for speed and where you expect most of your users to be).

It is about where the data is located... mainly.

Any storage of private customer data sent out of the EU needs the aproval of the president of the National Data Protection Agency. For a small business thatis just not gonna happen.

Still, even if stored in a datacenter located on an aproved country, you (and them) are supposed to fill a pile of paperwork in which they agree to take responsibility for so and so archive. Lots of hosting companies will tell you to fuck off if you bring the matter up, it seems.

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Arelor on Thu Oct 26 2023 06:28 am

An American company, or an American company with your data hosted in
the US?

The data needs to reside on an aproved location. Who controls the location doesnot matter as long as they fill their paperwork. Most hosting companies I have
checked don not fill the paperwork.

It is soooo much easier in practice to send your customer data to some low costVPS in God-knows-what-country that usually that is what ends up happening
anyway, hahahahaha.

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Arelor wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

It is soooo much easier in practice to send your customer data to some
low costVPS in God-knows-what-country that usually that is what ends up happening anyway, hahahahaha.

That being said, there are some interesting roll-your-own cloud office
suites out there. I thought there was a niche for pre-funding startups
at one point, but plain ol' G suite is hard to beat and it's what people
are used to.

My Synology NAS comes with an office, chat, calendar, mail app and file
storage -- again, you could set up a small office with needed storage
for a low cost - then back it up using Synology's cloud storage, AWS or
Azure.



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Re: old houses and wifi
By: MRO to All on Fri Oct 13 2023 12:18 am

Anybody like me and live in a real old house with walls as hard as rocks?

I have a router that is in the back of the house. there's clear line of sight to the front of the house, not that many feet to the front porch. I have a big metal door and like i said the walls are hard as a rock.

I can barely get wifi to my front cameras. I even tried swapping out other routers and same deal. Also i have to use 2.5ghz for my dzees cameras.

Anyone have this issue with wifi not getting through? should i spend 40 bucks on a repeater that plugs in the wall?

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WiFi-Range-Extender-EX5000/dp/B083R46CV8/

https://www.amazon.com/Wifi-Extender-Booster-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B08RHD97QY

okay folks. i finally have got my issue fixed. i tried different channels, got a wifi extender and it just didnt help. i even did an extension cord for the extender so i was a matter of feet away from my outside cameras.

so today i just did an extension cord and now i'm projecting it through the glass in my front window.

now next time kids slash everyone's tires, i will have crystal clear pictures of it instead of a pit pixilation. that's what happened to 2 streets last monday night. my car needed new tires anyways, but not this way. and they got the good ones.
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now next time kids slash everyone's tires, i will have crystal clear pictures
it instead of a pit pixilation. that's what happened to 2 streets last mond
night. my car needed new tires anyways, but not this way. and they got the od ones.

Glad you got it figured out, and it sounds like just in time, too.


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Re: old houses and wifi
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Thu Feb 29 2024 08:51 am

now next time kids slash everyone's tires, i will have crystal clear pictures
it instead of a pit pixilation. that's what happened to 2 streets last mond
night. my car needed new tires anyways, but not this way. and they got the od ones.

Glad you got it figured out, and it sounds like just in time, too.

not really. i did it after the tires were slashed. also video isn't really useful in most situations. black people in hoodies. how can you pick out who that is unless their parents or friends turn them in.

also this was at 10:40pm and called in by my neighbor who is a police officer. his girlfriend saw it. also other people on the other street saw it. then the kids ran off in different directions. i notice the police car on my street at 1:30am. some response time.

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-=[ On 02-29-24 11:20, MRO wrote to Dumas Walker below: ]=-
-=[ Re: old houses and wifi ]=-

Hi MRO!

Re: old houses and wifi
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Thu Feb 29 2024 08:51 am

also this was at 10:40pm and called in by my neighbor who is a police officer. his girlfriend saw it. also other people on the other street
saw it. then the kids ran off in different directions. i notice the police car on my street at 1:30am. some response time.

Dispatching an officer to handle a slashed tire is a low priority IMHO. But at least an officer did go out to take statements but highly doubt the people responsible will ever get caught by our justice system.

Cheers,
Bryan
bhandfield(at)me(dot)com

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Argelian to MRO on Sat Mar 02 2024 01:35 pm

officer. his girlfriend saw it. also other people on the other street saw it. then the kids ran off in different directions. i notice the police car on my street at 1:30am. some response time.

Dispatching an officer to handle a slashed tire is a low priority IMHO. But at least an officer did go out to take statements but highly doubt the people responsible will ever get caught by our justice system.

it wasn't just "a slashed tire". it was several blocks of slashed tires.
i provided a video but they did not post it or any information where anybody would see it.

so no crimestoppers money.
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-=[ On 03-03-24 11:31, MRO wrote to Argelian below: ]=-
-=[ Re: Re: old houses and wifi ]=-

Hi MRO!

Dispatching an officer to handle a slashed tire is a low priority IMHO. But at least an officer did go out to take statements but highly doubt the people responsible will ever get caught by our justice system.

it wasn't just "a slashed tire". it was several blocks of slashed
tires. i provided a video but they did not post it or any information where anybody would see it.

I am sorry that you have to deal with that. I hope that thing work out for you but I highly doubt the people responsible for this are going to get caught.

Cheers,
Bryan
bhandfield(at)me(dot)com

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Re: Re: old houses and wifi
By: Argelian to MRO on Sun Mar 03 2024 06:53 pm

it wasn't just "a slashed tire". it was several blocks of slashed tires. i provided a video but they did not post it or any information where anybody would see it.

I am sorry that you have to deal with that. I hope that thing work out for you but I highly doubt the people responsible for this are going to get caught.

yeah they won't get caught, unless i catch them.
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