Is it good to put a router in the attic?

[ShadeZeRO]

Hey everyone,

I'm planning on buying a new router (haven't decided on Draft 2.0n, or WirelessG-MIMO yet).

I have my DSL modem in the way North East corner of the house. There's no way I can move it anyhow.

I can get signal to about 1/2 way across my house on my Westel 327w.
If I get a 2nd router (to replace wireless functionality completely), would it be wise to put it into the attic, about mid way through the house?

it would be about 22feet (give or take a few feet), above everything.

p.s. The house is about 5500k sq.ft. So it needs to reach pretty far.

 

[Brutus04]

What if ya need to reset it?

 

[c3p0]

Florida in the summer + attic = HEAT.

Even if it works better in the attic, it probably won't last very long there. But I could be wrong!!!

c3p0
:beer:

 

[JackMDS]

There is No way to predict you have to try.

If it work well in the attic put it there. I would not worry too much unless you attic really gets very very hot.

 

[Modelworks]

I would probably put the router where I could easily access it and connect some coax cable to run the antenna to the best spot for reception in my home.
It wouldn't cost much and would let you locate it for best connection.

 

[JackMDS]

Extending 2.4GHz with a coax is Not a good idea the signal deteriorate very fast it is not recommended to use more than 6 feet, 10 feet the most.

 

[nightowl]

I would not put it in the attic as it will probably exceed the operating temperature range and void the warranty and result in flaky operation when the temperature rises. You could buy one of the many routers that can have 3rd party firmware installed and set it up as an AP or a repeater to give you better coverage.

 

[zudo]

You can always use a wireless repeater half way across the house if you don't get a good signal.

 

[amdfansftw]

why not just put it in the room that is below the place in the attic you want to go? IMO it will get too hot up there and will ruin the router.

 

[bruceb]

Keep it out of the attic .. As mentioned too much heat up there, especially where you are living.
As to the DSL Modem, there is absolutely no reason you Can Not Move it ... It just plugs into
a standard telephone RJ-11 Jack ... you just do not install the DSL Filter at that jack. Personally,
I would put the router as close to central in the home as possible. That way all the cables are
very close in length and all will get good results. I would also wire the dsl with a Whole House
DSL Filter at the telco point of entry .. You do,however. need to run a cable from the filter to feed
the DSL Modem input, but you will find the DSL line will be more reliable that way.

 

[cmetz]

ShadeZeRO, generally this would not be a UL approved kind of activity. That's a technical way of saying it might cause a fire hazard, and your homeowner's insurance might decide that said fire was a result of your actions, which might not be covered. Yes, there are a lot of might's here, but I know someone who put a TV amp in their attic and caused such a fire so this is not just speculation.

I would call this unsafe, and recommend that people not do it.

 

[ShadeZeRO]

Alright.

Thanks for the opinions!

Originally posted by: bruceb
Keep it out of the attic .. As mentioned too much heat up there, especially where you are living.
As to the DSL Modem, there is absolutely no reason you Can Not Move it ... It just plugs into
a standard telephone RJ-11 Jack ... you just do not install the DSL Filter at that jack. Personally,
I would put the router as close to central in the home as possible. That way all the cables are
very close in length and all will get good results. I would also wire the dsl with a Whole House
DSL Filter at the telco point of entry .. You do,however. need to run a cable from the filter to feed
the DSL Modem input, but you will find the DSL line will be more reliable that way.

I have a home-run running into this room (i.e. Connection is split from actual line at the NID and ran straight into my room).

Originally posted by: Modelworks
I would probably put the router where I could easily access it and connect some coax cable to run the antenna to the best spot for reception in my home.
It wouldn't cost much and would let you locate it for best connection.

The 10 feet wont get me much =\

As far as a repeater goes, I do have a very small wireless router with DD-WRT installed on it, but it's not very powerfull. 1 antenna.

I'll see if i can buy a new access point, and run some new Cat5.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Extending 2.4GHz with a coax is Not a good idea the signal deteriorate very fast it is not recommended to use more than 6 feet, 10 feet the most.

Not sure where you get those numbers from.
Wifi is run through coax all the time for distances of 50 feet+ without issues.
Yes . there is signal loss, but its not THAT bad

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Extending 2.4GHz with a coax is Not a good idea the signal deteriorate very fast it is not recommended to use more than 6 feet, 10 feet the most.

Not sure where you get those numbers from.
Wifi is run through coax all the time for distances of 50 feet+ without issues.
Yes . there is signal loss, but its not THAT bad

You are referring to 30mW entry level device, with simple inexpensive indoor coax?

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Extending 2.4GHz with a coax is Not a good idea the signal deteriorate very fast it is not recommended to use more than 6 feet, 10 feet the most.

Not sure where you get those numbers from.
Wifi is run through coax all the time for distances of 50 feet+ without issues.
Yes . there is signal loss, but its not THAT bad

You are referring to 30mW entry level device, with simple inexpensive indoor coax?

If it's not obvious already, I'm confused.

I understand attenuation and cable loss. I know a little bit about Ham Radio/Antennas/Mobile Receivers/Cabling so the lingo isn't foreign to me. I had a 4-meter piece of extension coax in my truck with a normal 40-channel CB and it didn't affect the signal one bit. I realize they are different wavelengths, but the same rules should apply, no?

The rules really seem to change when it comes to 2.4GHz WiFi.

Watts=Watts. Why should there be such a big difference b/t a 2-meter piece of skinny indoor coax and a 3-meter piece of indoor coax?

As you know, I've been dealing w/signal strength issues myself; I've contemplated putting the SIGNAL BOOSTER out in the hall. But that would mean a 4-meter run of coax being pushed by a consumer-grade AP (USR9108). But with 500mw behind it, there should be extremely minimal loss...or so my confused mind thinks.

Either way...these thread are both educational and depressing...in an educational sort of way, of course.

 

[JackMDS]

I agree it is very frustrating.

Why? Because people like to be right, and thus resort to verbal analogies rather than strict technology.

Lucky for us in buildings there is codes, if there were not codes everything would collapsed in our face because people would do the same thing that we are doing here, using verbal analogies instead of technological spec.

"I build my house strong I do not know why there was a little tremor and the house collapsed", said the man who lost his family when an earthquake occurred in one of the 3rd world countries.

In the old days when we use to work with SSB using the 20meter band (about 14MHz) we could DX the whole world under good atmospheric condition?

It was possible to do so if you use a very Good Multi element Yagi sitting on a tall mast. We used more than 50 feet of coax to get from the transmitter to the Antenna elements.

Why it worked? Because these are the properties of the 20 Meter band and it use of the Heaviside Layer.

Well can we do the same with 10 meter signal?

Nah we can not. But why? It is only double the frequency (said the guy that uses language as a technological variable).

There are people that did more than 5miles Wireless WIFI communication in an open door environment while the antennae were sitting on tall towers on both sides. They used Linksys WAP11 (that is an old entry level 802.11b Access Point).

What is mutual to all of these experiments is that the WAP for installed on the Tower few inches from the Antenna and the signal was brought up via CAT5e.

5 miles, yet at home with two walls many people cannot get 30feet.

Did you notice Spidey disgust with Wireless?

Probably because Spidey has to deliver in a big corporate world and probably he eats some craw, because in his world it really matters.

Most of us play our wireless ?Games? at home and we are we emotional about it but whether it s really working well or not is just a matter of ??Game?? and blubbering.

 

[ShadeZeRO]

Well, the only computer that games is my Desktop which is connected via Cat5e connection. My coax is being used by my satellite receiver. I dunno if a Di-Plexer would work in this situation (same frequencies?)

 

[ding5550123]

It would be smarter to mount it onto the celing. It would be one less layer to send the signal through and more accessable. You can run power and ethernet through the attic, then drill through the sheetrock to get them to the router.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: ShadeZeRO
Well, the only computer that games is my Desktop which is connected via Cat5e connection. My coax is being used by my satellite receiver. I dunno if a Di-Plexer would work in this situation (same frequencies?)

You would not want to use standard tv grade coax.
When I said coax , I meant coax spec'd for wifi.

LMR-400 is probably the cheapest I would go with.
It loses about 6db every 100ft, which is about half what a typical router produces.

Of course there is better cable, like LMR-900, loses about 2db every 100ft, but its a lot thicker and cost more.

I would probably just use about 20 foot of the stuff, enough to place an antenna in the attic and have the router somewhere convenient.

Handy page to bookmark for doing the calcs.
http://huizen.deds.nl/~pa0hoo/...c/wlan_budgetcalc.html

 

[JackMDS]

One or two units of this might solve the problem.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000A...-tier4-20&linkCode=asn

It is and it can do WDS ( http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Modes.html ).