Wi Fi extender help

[narsbars]

Situation: Two houses in the country about 300 feet apart. Signal in second house is OK for phones but too weak for TV. I tested my current router on a RJ 45 cord and extended it about 20 feet to my front room and the TV works in the second house. I have a spare WRT32X router and would like to use it with stock firmware as an extender/repeater wirelessly so I can set it up in my front room closer to the other house. Current router gateway IP 192.168.0.1 WRT32X default gateway IP 192.168.1.1.
I would like to avoid running a cable and would like to do this wirelessly so if the front room does not work I can move it to my second floor and have an even better line of sight to the second house. I only need to end up with a reliable 50 meg connection at the 2nd house to guarantee 4K TV and wiggle room for snow and rain interference.
Any suggestions on this? I keep reading the WRT32X can't be set up in repeater or AP mode but don't want to go to other than factory firmware to keep it simple.
Help? Anyone do this with a WRT32X? If the only answer is a wired connection I will do it but would like to avoid it.

 

[harbingerofdoom]

Easiest way would be a couple of mesh wifi units which you can usually use as a bridge (do your research and make sure the one you are looking at does support it) and on the downlink side send that into a switch. Leave the WRT as a back up in case your lead router dies.


If the switch support POE then you have the advantage of being able to look for mesh units that you only need a single cable for and wont need a power outlet nearby.

Ubiquity UAP-AC-M is an example of something that can do this but there are probably some cheaper bridges out there.

 

[narsbars]

Easiest way would be a couple of mesh wifi units which you can usually use as a bridge (do your research and make sure the one you are looking at does support it) and on the downlink side send that into a switch. Leave the WRT as a back up in case your lead router dies.


If the switch support POE then you have the advantage of being able to look for mesh units that you only need a single cable for and wont need a power outlet nearby.

Ubiquity UAP-AC-M is an example of something that can do this but there are probably some cheaper bridges out there.

Thanks, but due to budget I have to work with what I have, I can't buy more than a few bucks worth of extras and I can't throw out the vendors unit or they don't won't troubleshoot on my own unit.

 

[SamirD]

Easy peasy--set the WRT32X to AP mode, connect a ethernet cable to it--done!

Now if you can't get ethernet to the WRT32X, then the 'repeater' mode should work--just got to configure that. But honestly just getting ethernet to it somehow would be best--powerline, moca, etc.

In fact, if the two houses share common power and or cable lines, you might be able to use powerline or moca adapters between the two houses. And there's also vdsl ethernet bridges if both houses have phone wire and a demarc for both that you can access. Lots of ways to skin this cat.

 

[dogDAbone]

RJ-45 cord...for a router ??

Been there, done this, with an older router than I had left over after upgrading to a much faster model for my main connections upstairs.... I used the old one to extend the signals to reach all of my wireless doorbells and security cameras downstairs & out to my shop in the back yard. The signal was ok, but sometimes unreliable due to block/brick walls & other interferences.

Wired connections will ALWAYS be better & more reliable than wireless, as mentioned already, so just run an Cat6 cable to the 2nd unit, log into it & set it as a repeater & reboot it, done, done & done

You could also use it to set up a separate network with different SSID's & passwords too, to keep some things off your primary network too, but there are a few more steps involved...

 

[narsbars]

Easy peasy--set the WRT32X to AP mode, connect a ethernet cable to it--done!

Now if you can't get ethernet to the WRT32X, then the 'repeater' mode should work--just got to configure that. But honestly just getting ethernet to it somehow would be best--powerline, moca, etc.

In fact, if the two houses share common power and or cable lines, you might be able to use powerline or moca adapters between the two houses. And there's also vdsl ethernet bridges if both houses have phone wire and a demarc for both that you can access. Lots of ways to skin this cat.

Thanks, but I can't find anywhere to turn on AP mode.

 

[SamirD]

Thanks, but I can't find anywhere to turn on AP mode.

If there's no 'ap mode', just turn off the dhcp server and plug a lan cable in the lan side and nothing in the wan. This is what we did before there was any sort of 'ap mode' available.

 

[GotNoRice]

If there's no 'ap mode', just turn off the dhcp server and plug a lan cable in the lan side and nothing in the wan. This is what we did before there was any sort of 'ap mode' available.

Yup. Also just have to make sure that the AP doesn't have the same IP as your other router (for example, it might have 192.168.1.1 as it's default, and that might be the same as your main router, and that would cause problems). So make sure to set it's IP to something different than your main router's IP, but still within the subnet of your existing LAN (outside the range of your DHCP address pool if possible).

 

[narsbars]

Yup. Also just have to make sure that the AP doesn't have the same IP as your other router (for example, it might have 192.168.1.1 as it's default, and that might be the same as your main router, and that would cause problems). So make sure to set it's IP to something different than your main router's IP, but still within the subnet of your existing LAN (outside the range of your DHCP address pool if possible).

I just barely think I am getting a clue. Router 1, set IP range short of full range, EX. 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.25 then set second router to fixed IP 192.168.0.100. Everything on Youtube, the H, etc. keeps telling me to set settings that don't exist on this unit with your post being the most understandable and logical. I should be able to keep the same subnet and contact printers for instance on the other router as it will be in the same subnet. I was hoping to use the 2nd unit as an extender but your idea should work. Thanks

 

[SamirD]

Yup. Also just have to make sure that the AP doesn't have the same IP as your other router (for example, it might have 192.168.1.1 as it's default, and that might be the same as your main router, and that would cause problems). So make sure to set it's IP to something different than your main router's IP, but still within the subnet of your existing LAN (outside the range of your DHCP address pool if possible).

Yep, I forgot that tidbit that's pretty important. The AP ip can actually be an IP in another subnet and it shouldn't matter except that you won't be able to access it unless you manually set something else in the same subnet. But I would typically do this to make sure nothing on the lan can mess with it.