Omnidirectional wireless boost?

[Eleandor]

Hey guys, I'm attempting to boost my wireless signal. Apparently outdoors it works pretty well (got 80% in garden) but indoors at a different floor it's horrible, sometimes can't even connect at all. So I went online to find some free solutions. Some of them include:

- Place your router at a central spot, preferably high (did that, it's at the top floor of my house, as central as possible)
- Changing the channel (did that, no result)
- Creating your own directional antenna (www.freeantennas.com).

Problem with that is that it is - yes - directional. I got a desktop that connects wireless at the front of my house, and a laptop that usually connects at the back of my house, or at the garden (also back, obviously). So a directional antenna is going to screw up the signal of my desktop if I wish to boost the back of my house.

So does anyone know a good way of getting an omnidirectional boost, other than buying a repeater or a better wireless antenna?

 

[BlargHonk]

Make it directional on both sides -.-

Should still boost signal

 

[Eleandor]

1) *Both* sides? If you simplify it a lot, you still have 6 directions: left, right, forwards, backwards, up and down.
2) Tried a self-made parabolic antenna now, it seems to help, but obviously only helps at specific places in the house...

 

[BlargHonk]

Well, sure the wireless will only work in 2 spots then, but hey, 2 spots!

Also, might help if you get a new router...

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well, we could ask the question why is your desktop connected wirelessly when it is stationary. What I would do is connect the desktop via ethanet LAN and then just focus on the wireless for the laptop.

But sadly, there are no real free solutions to this. Like I said if you wire the desktop you could move the repater closer to the laptop interaction area and thus improve its signal but tha requires the creation of a wired LAN network. You could also add multiple wirless axcess points around your house, but that needs some form of wired network as well as more wireless to wired axcess devices.

My final and only free solution I have come up with is if you can get your laptop and desktop to act as wirless servers, you then could create a wirless mesh network for boosted preformance, where by you primarly try and axcess the router but if that fails you send the signal to your desktop or laptop which will then foward it to the router allowing for 2 channles of internet axcess and thus imprroved transfer rates if that is the problem. Doubt this will help though as it needs the machines to be on to work and does not help if you are getting no wirless at all.

 

[BlargHonk]

I thought the meshwork would be too complicated for him XD

Go google it, they are probably better than me at explaining how to do it (Also varys between routers >.<)



Another thing is a robotically controlled antenna that homes in on the coordinates of a RFID, just stick the RFID on the labtop, but it would probably be overly expansive

 

[Eleandor]

Well, we could ask the question why is your desktop connected wirelessly when it is stationary. What I would do is connect the desktop via ethanet LAN and then just focus on the wireless for the laptop.

Several reasons:
1) Plenty of "fake" walls on that floor, which means it's hard to hide wires.
2) Very long ethernet cable required, and even if I were to use *even more* wires, I wouldn't be able to hide them (see 1)
3) USB wireless adapter included in router package, thus no need to use wires.
Note that the desktop has a good connection (90% signal strength), and since it's stationary, there's no problem here. Besides, would this really solve the problem? I still need to be able to use my laptop on those locations with a horrible signal strength. And moving my modem is not a real option, since that would involve either moving my other desktop, or using even longer wires, and stuff I really don't want to do.

My final and only free solution I have come up with is if you can get your laptop and desktop to act as wirless servers, you then could create a wirless mesh network for boosted preformance, where by you primarly try and axcess the router but if that fails you send the signal to your desktop or laptop which will then foward it to the router allowing for 2 channles of internet axcess and thus imprroved transfer rates if that is the problem. Doubt this will help though as it needs the machines to be on to work and does not help if you are getting no wirless at all.

I was recently thinking that I should technically be able to use the wireless USB adapter as a repeater, shouldn't I? But I have no idea how to do that...
Wouldn't your final solution require the desktop to remain active while using my laptop? It also feels like a lot of work... Might as well just buy a stronger antenna if there's no *fast* solution...

Anyway, the parabolic antenna I made myself seems to work better than I suspected. When aimed away from my desktop, the desktop still has a pretty good signal strength, but my laptop now also gets a good signal at the areas the antenna covers.