router to router

[revron]

we live in a house that has 3 computers, one of them acts as a printer server, the other two are our laptops. our house has a netgear router and we work fine w/i the house as a lan.

my church is 100 yards away and has a dsl modem connected to a netgear router.

the laptops at home connect to the church's router to get highspeed internet. (so, we disconnect from our home router and connect to the church's. then we are at highspeed to the world.)

the problem is that to do this, we have to have our garage door open else we don't make the connection. and even then, my laptop often drops out of the church router and temporarily connects to our home router; a real pain in the butt.

my ? is: can we set up the home wireless router to comunicate with the church's wireless router??? i'm wondering if this is a possibility and then wondering some more if the connection from router to router might be better than the link from my laptop at home to the router at church.

if this is possible, what do you call it and how do you install this?

also, if we could do router to router, then perhaps our home computers could always be connected to the inhouse router which gives us great internal (house) speed. and the router to router may get us to the church's dsl for network stuff.

thanks in advance!

ron

[moistmule]

this would be called a Repeater. your home router will repeat the churches one. if we had the model number fo the router we could help. seeing as the distance is only 100yards it might be a good idea to run a hardwired connection between to the routers?!

[revron]

both routers are netgear. the house one is wgr614v4 and the church one is mr814v2.

i cannot connect a direct wire as the two sites are connected via the church parking lot.

my hope would be to set up the repeater (with your help) so that the three computers in the house are connected to the house router and the printer and the two church computers are connected to the church router where the dsl resides.

my desire is such that any internet request coking from a home computer would cost the church dsl modem to connect to the outside world.

if you have some specifics including examples, that would be great!

i have no idea how to set this up.

thanks in advance!

ron

[mikeL]

Have you thought about a point to point or a directional WiFi antenna. The directional antenna looks more cost effective.

http://www.radiolabs.com/Articles/wifi-antenna.html

[glc]

2 routers will cause all kinds of issues. It's easy to bridge between the 2 buildings using wireless, possibly with directional antennas to boost the signal strength, but the building without the Internet connection should be using a simple switch, not an additional router.

Ideally, what you need to find to install in the house is a wireless access point that can operate as both a bridge and an access point simultaneously. You would connect that to a switch and retire the house router. The church router will control the whole network.

Another option is hook up a high gain antenna over at the church and see what kind of signal strength you get in the house. If it's good, retire the router and put a wireless card in the desktop and go 100% wireless in the house, all running off the church router.

[kilgoretrout]

Even if it's possible to connect router to router, the connection quality will still be the same IMHO, i.e. you won't see any improvement at your home with that setup. The antena solution mentioned by mikel is your best bet.
Another no cost thing you can try is placing the wifi router at the church in different locations and see if you get better reception at your home. Higher placement usually improves distance.

[revron]

thanks to all for your comments!

it seems my best bet is to try a directional antenna located at the church. i would try to move the router at the church to a better location (and there are better locations) but the router cables directly to the dsl with a 10' cord. the church only has one telephone jack that has all the filters necessary for the dsl to work.

(i know there are better locations in the church as i've walked my home laptop all around the church and connected to the router back at the house. we have a huge double glass door that is on the end of the church closest to our house that works great. again, i have the problem of a fized location in the church for the dsl ... and i don't want to bear the expense of having att come back to the church at their hourly rate! to move it.)

so, i shall make a trip to best buy tomorrow.

i will also read up on the concept of a switch and a bridge.

thanks again!

i'll let you folks know how i make out.

ron

[kilgoretrout]

If you like do it yourself projects, here's an article on how to make a wifi antenna from a tin can and about $5 in parts:

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

He calls it the "Cantenna". It looks like a fun project if you have the time and inclination.