Dusty MI

Well-known Member
We are in a resident owned RV park, both rv's and mobile homes. We have wi-fi in the park office. Is there an easy way to get the wi-fi through out the park for residents use ?

Dusty
 
Some Missouri State Parks have done this, and I was looking at one of their setups. It appears they basically work off a sort of repeater type setup where each access point is picking up off the previous
access point. I know the access points are on poles along the road. A lot would depend on distance, number of access points, customers (RV's that would use), bandwidth needs, etc. If not too terribly far,
you could bury cable to each access point which would likely work best on buildings or poles. Also take into consideration what bandwidth you have available. You are not going to distribute a small 3 Mb
DSL connection to 50 RV's and make any of them happy when they try to stream netflix or watch youtube videos. Hopefully someone with more network experience can weigh in, as I do IT type work, but not so
much on the networking side of things.
 
If you and the neighbors get along well enough, a few strategically placed wireless range extenders would do what you need. Staples, Amazon, eBay, and other places sell them.
 
Extenders would be a good choice if you want to go DIY. Do yourself a favor and buy quality, Cicso Linksys are good. Netgear not so good. Cisco makes an extender that will go 150 feet, but extenders are prone to problems with line of sight, channel selection, bandwidth, etc. like Ron has said. You could setup multiple extenders. But again this is DIY. Best bet is to get a network consulting outfit to come in and give you and estimate on cost and best equipment. If you go the DIY route and experiment you could end up throwing away money better spent on a professional installation.
 
Easiest way is to put up a pole and put access point with antenna on it.

You can get an aluminum cabinet with a Cisco access point and external antenna port, run your Ethernet and antenna cable out a waterproof connector. People make these outdoor access points
already done. You do not want to use a long antenna cable because of the loss, nor a steel cabinet because they get hot from the sun. An aluminum cabinet will reflect the heat.

Email me if you have questions, have done a lot of this over the years.
 
Dusty my Michigan sparky friend. Many (but far from all) RV Parks have expensive adequate park wide WiFi Distribution and Antenna systems HOWEVER as you well know that requires expensive investments. First they need to purchase adequate bandwidth from their provider (which many do NOT) and then invest and install repeater antennas and amplifiers (which many do not). I have been in parks where there are antennas on like every block BUT many parks offer WiFi Hotspots which is no more then a Wireless Router in their office with little bandwidth and no repeaters or amplifiers etc whatsoever grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. At our ;park they got an estimate to install park wide WiFi with repeaters and amplifiers on each block and it was THOUSANDS so they declined. THAT BEING SAID I have like 3 or 4 high gain external USB WiFi Adapter Antennas that are like 3 or 4 times the strength of my lapotps built in antenna so I get by even in parks with only WiFi Hotspots and they cost from like $30 (E Bay cheapies) to $200 for my Radio labs Marine WiFi High Gain USB Antenna. Antenna. When NOT in any WiFi location I use my USB MiFi air card Hotspot with 3 or 4 G.

John T
 
John T,

You are correct, a high gain antenna is the cheapest bang for the buck, you can get a 24dB omni pretty cheap.
 
Ive seen/owned flat panel directional (cheapest) and Yaggi type directional (cost more but higher gain) and I have a Radio Labs Omni high gain with amplifier but it wasn't CHEAP LOL

John T
 

You need to talk to your internet provider to make sure that the capacity for enough bandwidth exists. You will not be happy if you try to attach too many devices to a line intended to support one residence.
 
Another trick is to use 3 directionals 120 degrees apart, can put each one on its own channel, that really kicks it out.
 
I really do not like rang extenders, they introduce latency, much better to back haul with fiber.
 

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