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Question

Range Extenders, Wireless Router and Access Points

Feb 22, 2016 10:03PM PST

This will be a bit long, so bare with me....

The equipment I'll be talking about in my story are:
Engenius Wireless N300 Range Extender
TP Link wa5210g Outdoor wireless access point
TP-Link wifi range extender
Cisco E1000 Wireless N-Router

My situation is I have my home office about 100yards away from my house. Until recently, the set up I had was a ISP modem => Cisco E1000 in the home. On the window of the office, I had the WA5210G AP mounted and pointing towards the house. I had 10mps upload speed at the house, which is plenty. At the office, I was getting 6mps speeds which worked out just fine for what I needed to do.

We did some remodeling at the house and had to move the E1000 from the main floor to the basement. The E1000 wasn't able to send a strong enough signal from the basement to be able to be picked up by the WA5210G. Also, because our ISP wanted to give us new equipment (the modem was a good 5 years old), they gave us another modem with a wireless router built in, which was fine. Still, the signal wasn't strong enough to be picked up by the WA5210G.

So, on a whim, I purchased a couple of TP-Link Wireless N300 range extenders. They worked great in the house! We even put one in the garage as well! The WA5210G was now able to pick up the signal from the N300 Extenders......but, the speed was now only about 2-3mps, which I could work with, but a 5-6mps would be MUCH better.

I was going to buy a Engenius N300 Range Extender, but the ISP tech guy said I could hard wire the E1000 to the ISP wireless router and could have a much stronger signal than the N300. I figure that would be GREAT as that's what I had to begin with....AND, I could move the E1000 to a better place in the house so the WA5210G could get a stronger signal. Cool! Again, I just waned my 5-6mps.

I got a couple of TP LINK power adapters (which are AWESOME btw), paired them up and hooked the E1000 up through them and BINGO! I had an awesome signal on our back deck! With my cell phone, I could almost walk all the way to the office and still have signal with the E1000. I could only walk about 1/4 of the way with the N300 range extenders.

I figured everything would be smooth sailing after that, because, well, if the 5210g picked up the weak signal from the range extender, and my cell phone was using the E1000 without a glitch, the 5210g would easily pick up the signal right? well....Nope, nothing. I doesn't even SEE the signal from the E1000! Huh? Why not?

Then I remembered about a week ago I called TP link tech support and they had me do a hard reset on the 5210g. I'm not a techie person at all, but they walked me though it. Now, I had the original set up for the last 3 years and never had an issue. All the sudden I, can't pick up the signal from something I've had for the last 3 years!

If I still haven't confused you, my question is, why won't the 5210G pick up the signal from the E1000 now when it did just a couple of weeks ago? Other devices are picking it up with no issues. Is there something I have to do? Maybe change settings? Now, I have noticed the 5210g was (before the hard reset) was in the AP mode, and now it's in the Universal Repeater mode. Does that have something to do with it?

Again, I'm not techie, but I can switch from one mode to the other.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

If I would purchase the Engenius range extender, would that solve my issue? I hate to purchase more equipment when what I have is perfectly in good working order.

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I believe that's how range extender work.
Feb 23, 2016 12:34AM PST

It increase the range but half the bandwidth. If this is a cable ISP then there shouldn't be any problem increasing speed now-a-day. Of course DSL might be a different story.

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Answer
How do you
Feb 23, 2016 8:28AM PST

get electricity at the office? Overhead wires from the house? If yes, you could try running a pair of powerline adapters, but even then 100 yds might be a challenge. You could also run a Cat cable either overhead or trenched from house to office. If you want to remain wireless, best bet is to consult with some professional network installers in your area to find out what they use and how to avoid interference. This will cost you, but isn't it better than trial and error which still costs money, time and angst ... unless of course you just love experimenting.

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This is how....
Feb 23, 2016 10:07AM PST

Long story, but when I bought the property, the "office" was on a separate power grid, I won't go into details as to why. But if it were on the same power grid, I would use the power adapters. As for digging up the yard to bury cable, that's not an option. Especially, since there are people everywhere that are doing what I'm wanting to do (and did it for the past 3 years) all over the place.

Let me ask this, if I get a EnGenius ENS500 Outdoor Access Point to replace the WA5210g, would that help? Maybe even a stronger range extender? Or maybe even just re-hooking up the Cisco to use as a range extender?

As I said, 2 weeks ago, everything was working fine, not it's not. So I know it works in some way shape or form.

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I won't
Feb 23, 2016 11:02AM PST

go into why it worked then but not now. Your simplest solution is to call Engenius since they specialize in long range equipment, describe your needs and buy what they recommend.

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Holy Smokes!
Feb 23, 2016 11:29AM PST

Holy smokes! I did something that worked! Don't ask me how/what/why, but it is now working. I plugged the cisco back in at the house and then I went into the "guts" of the WA5210g, and changed things from Universal Repeater mode to Access Point mode. I then saved it. I went back and, while in AP mode, ran a survey to see which signals I was getting and low and behold, I saw the cisco and it had the strongest signal! I could not connect because it was in AP mode. I switched back to UR and ran a survey. Again, the cisco was the strongest signal, and I connected to it. It took a while as it was "obtaining an IP address" (whatever that means) but then it connected! I saved everything in the 5210 and ran speed tests...guess what? I'm back to my 5-6mps! All is well now! Thanks for all the input. I hope this story helps someone!

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Now
Feb 23, 2016 12:05PM PST

remember what you did so that you can repeat it again if necessary. Congrats.