8 replies to this topic

[Chris B]

So this is basically a shot in the dark (I know that going in), but I figured I'd ask BSL for their input/suggestions.

 

Basically, I'm trying to host my fantasy football draft next Friday up at my family's house on the river for a fun weekend. My grandfather has wifi, cable, etc. all set up in his house, and the second/guest house (it sounds way more elegant than it actually is) is right next door.

 

Because half of our league is out of town, we usually just sign on to Google docs from one computer in the main location and the out-of-towners sign in as well to submit their picks.

 

My uncle said that he had no problem connecting to my pop's wifi from the second house but when I went up there tonight to test things, it seems like he may have hyperbolized that, as it took a while to load and obviously would not work for our league's purposes.

 

So with that, I ask for any and all suggestions. I'm not great at wifi/tech stuff, so I am all ears. Is there a way to amplify the signal? Could I buy a verizon hotspot or something of that like (if so, what are the costs and other things associated with that)? Are there any other alternatives or would it just be best to find a new location?

Any/all help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Mike in STL]

So this is basically a shot in the dark (I know that going in), but I figured I'd ask BSL for their input/suggestions.

 

Basically, I'm trying to host my fantasy football draft next Friday up at my family's house on the river for a fun weekend. My grandfather has wifi, cable, etc. all set up in his house, and the second/guest house (it sounds way more elegant than it actually is) is right next door.

 

Because half of our league is out of town, we usually just sign on to Google docs from one computer in the main location and the out-of-towners sign in as well to submit their picks.

 

My uncle said that he had no problem connecting to my pop's wifi from the second house but when I went up there tonight to test things, it seems like he may have hyperbolized that, as it took a while to load and obviously would not work for our league's purposes.

 

So with that, I ask for any and all suggestions. I'm not great at wifi/tech stuff, so I am all ears. Is there a way to amplify the signal? Could I buy a verizon hotspot or something of that like (if so, what are the costs and other things associated with that)? Are there any other alternatives or would it just be best to find a new location?

Any/all help is appreciated. Thanks!

I'm not good with tech stuff either. But It might be a matter of location, or internet speed.

 

I'm in a decently populated area, and my router is the basic thing that Comcast gave us with internet/home security system. I host my baseball draft and had probably 8 computers logged on, everyones phones, the home security works off the wifi, and the wives were streaming netflix upstairs, all with no hiccups. Thats with probably as basic a router as you can get. 

 

I think you can use most smartphones as a hotspot now, but for in a pinch things. My wife and I have Android phones and when using the hotspot you can search things, or probably type names into a google doc pretty easy. But it isn't strong enough to stream a video with great quality. That maybe standard on smartphones, and if so , you could ask all involved to use their own hotspot. 

[McNulty]

Who's your cell carrier? Tmobile usually has free hotspot

[Chris B]

Who's your cell carrier? Tmobile usually has free hotspot

 Verizon.

[Chris B]

I'm not good with tech stuff either. But It might be a matter of location, or internet speed.

 

I'm in a decently populated area, and my router is the basic thing that Comcast gave us with internet/home security system. I host my baseball draft and had probably 8 computers logged on, everyones phones, the home security works off the wifi, and the wives were streaming netflix upstairs, all with no hiccups. Thats with probably as basic a router as you can get. 

 

I think you can use most smartphones as a hotspot now, but for in a pinch things. My wife and I have Android phones and when using the hotspot you can search things, or probably type names into a google doc pretty easy. But it isn't strong enough to stream a video with great quality. That maybe standard on smartphones, and if so , you could ask all involved to use their own hotspot. 

 

Yeah, usually when we do at at my house or one of my friend's houses, it's no problem. The main issue is (hopelessly) trying to get a secure and fast connection to my grandfather's router in his house (100 feet or so away). Likely unrealistic, but I figured I might as well ask here.

[McNulty]

 Verizon.

http://www.verizonwi...mobile-hotspot/

[RShack]

Yeah, usually when we do at at my house or one of my friend's houses, it's no problem. The main issue is (hopelessly) trying to get a secure and fast connection to my grandfather's router in his house (100 feet or so away). Likely unrealistic, but I figured I might as well ask here.

 

Distance makes wifi connection speed get slow... it just does.    For something like your situation, if you use cable instead, speed will be fine...

 

I had 2 houses with wifi on 1 internet connection for 10 years... I had a wireless router in each house, and ran plain unshielded cat5 wire from one house to the other, and put connectors on each end... the houses were ~275' apart, but I needed 330' by the time the wire wandered to where it needed to be on each end... I just laid the cable on the ground, which was beach sand... it worked great... (except putting unshielded indoor cable directly on the sand meant nearby lightning strikes when the sand was wet would blow out a router once or twice a year... unplugging just one end of the cable would prevent that, but sometimes I was asleep, or not there, or something... so I just bought cheap $15 routers, kept a couple spares in the closet, and treated them as disposables)... 

 

You could do that, using a router in each house... or you could do it with just the 1 existing router. and plug the far end of the wire wire directly into your computer....  if multiple people are gonna be there, you can let them connect wirelessly to the laptop that has the wired connection...

 

Your distance is less, so you don't need to buy a whole spool of wire and add connectors to each end...  for example...

 

https://www.amazon.c...50' cat5e cable

 

That's outdoor shielded cable, so it costs more... if this is just a temp thing, you could use indoor cable and spend less than $20 that way.... (when I did it, I used regular unshileded indoor cable, and it lasted that long... was about shot by the end of 10 years though... the outer cable casing was falling apart from getting soaked in salt water during storms, being baked in the sun for most of the year, etc...)

 

Before you do this, measure better... from connection point to connection point, not house to house... the wire's gotta wind it's way from 1 place to the other, so the actual running distance will grow more than you think...

 

EDIT:  If you are gonna use a 2nd router in the other house, be sure to plug the wire into one of its LAN ports, not its WAN port... because the 2nd router is being connected to the existing LAN, not directly to the WAN... only the 1st router is connected to the WAN...

 

Make sense?

[Nigel Tufnel]

Assuming the wifi works fine in your grandfather's house and is slow in the guesthouse because of distance, you could always just get a wifi range extender.  Basically, you plug in the extender halfway between your grandfather's wireless router and the guesthouse.  You connect the extender to your grandfather's wireless router, and you connect your laptop to the range extender.  This saves you the trouble of running a cable.

 

Something like this:

 

https://www.amazon.c... range extender

[Chris B]

Thanks guys, appreciate the help. Basically it's between 50-100 feet from the middle of one house to the other. I really only need one good connection for a computer in the second house so we can connect to wifi so that we can communicate with people not in attendance via google docs.

 

I'm going to do a bit more research and hopefully give these things a try in the next week and if it doesn't work, we'll just have to move the draft elsewhere for this year.

 

Thanks again!!