UPDATE: Extending Wi-Fi to the barn.

TJ in KY

Member
I decided to go with a power line extender and got a TP-link AC1200 WIFI Range Extender for a little over $100.
I followed the directions and plugged it in the same circuit (at the house)and paired the two units and it worked anywhere in the house. Then I took it to the barn and nothing. There is a shop building between the barn and the house and I plugged it in there and it worked. (all buildings are on the same transformer)
My feed comes in from the transformer and splits to the house and the shop (about 100 Ft apart). There is a breaker box in the shop and a 30 amp breaker feeds the barn (about 200 feet additional)
I apologize if I am not using all the right terms. I remember reading (not in the instructions) that both sender and receiver need to be on the same leg of the power line feed. So at the shop we put the breaker for the barn on the other side of the box (different leg) and it still did not work.
So then my son and I stretched out about 150 feet of extension cords toward the barn and it worked, but still would not work at the barn.
The 10 gauge wire from the shop to the barn is on its own 30 amp breaker. So (I know it is probably not legal) I tapped the feed to the breaker box in the barn and put an outlet in there before it feeds the main breaker. And it all worked. The breaker in the shop on feed to the barn will protect the single outlet for the WI-FI extender.
I don’t know why it would not work but the signal would have had to go thru 3 main breakers (house shop and barn) and when we took one of the main breakers out of the mix it worked. I did try it on both legs of the breaker box at the barn and it did not work

When it was in the shop 24 ‘by 36’ we had Wi-Fi everywhere, good strong signal. At the barn 40’ by 60’ had a good strong signal also. There is an addition to the barn about 24’ by 40’ with a partial wall (metal) and the signal was one bar less but still worked.
Thanks for all the suggestions and help. This is a temporary situation where I wanted Wi-Fi at the barn for the next 4 months or so for some temporary living arrangements.
 
Some breakers are magnetically tripped. These breakers do not allow certain frequencies to pass them. Your best chance is to find
a service technician that can recommend a capacitor to bridge the breaker. It will not change the breaker performance, but it will
let the signal go through. Do not try any old capacitor!!! most do not like AC that would be placed on them is the breaker opened
or was shut off. I built a radio station is a 15 floor dormitory when I was taking electronics classes. it was coupled to the
entire building through jumpers across the breakers. Jim
 
At the location of the shop we are 600 feet from the neighbors house. We buy WiFi
from them. They did nothing. We put an outdoor antenna with 100 foot of cable to a
WiFi repeater. This repeater came with 3 antennas. Hooked the outside antenna to one
of the ports. Configured it for the WiFi we wanted to extend. Have reasonable
performance. Their internet service isn't the fastest but it gets the job done.
Issues were omni directional or directional antenna. We went with directional but
later test an omni directional and it worked as well and did not need to be aimed.
The coax connected directly to the antenna. To connect to the router we used a short
extension because of how stiff the cable was. There also is male to male adapter at
the extender. It works very well for us. The extender across the a.c. line always
gave us trouble when we tried to use them.
 
A while back I purchased a little travel router I read about to get more range. It is a GL-AR300 EXT for $40. With it sitting in the window sill on the north side of my house I get a signal 500 feet from the west front.

Not sure how well my little router would work with metal buildings in between.
 
We were able to test it with some u-tube videos and it played them with no buffering. I think it is faster than what I have at my home in KY. It is in a rural area but they installed fiber optic cable a couple of years ago. It is doing everything that we wanted it to do.
 
My son in law is an electrician, but works out of town. I may have him look into it sometime when he is around
 
Is it possible you need more than one. The tech that installed my new wifi and router told me i could extend signal by adding more to
system. Just thinking it may need another in between extenders, for lack of a better word. Good luck. Let us know how it works in the
end.

Joe
 
My two cents- I know nothing about all this stuff- but will say yrs ago I put a "Dish" on my barn roof - works great for TV-Sirius, and internet.....
 

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