I would like to have an internet connection in my barn. A picture layout of the property is below.

The barn is on a separate electrical meter from the house with it's own panel, so there is no direct electrical connectivity between the house and barn and I am skeptical of those systems that use house wiring to move and boost an internet signal, and wanted to ask y'all for your help with this.

Distance from WAP in house to front of barn is 175'; distance to center of barn is 250'. Roofs of both buildings are steel.

 
Buried fiber optic cable from house to barn, with media converters at each end. This would provide the strongest signal in the barn. Then you can connect a computer in the barn using ethernet, or install a wireless access point in the barn (connected with ethernet) and use Wi-Fi there. The access point in the barn has to be configured exactly the same (same SSID, password, and security settings) as the house Wi-Fi.

We used Ubiquiti products to do a house to house connection. Worked good for us. Used a Access Point and Bridge setup.

What you need is a wifi bridge.
Each unit would need line of sight and face each other.
This effectively "connects" the two points.
Then connect the one at the house to your local lan and the one in the barn to whatever device you may have.
JALLEN had a thread on this a while back and the same situation.
As far as equipment brands a couple of companies that do this well are EnGenius and Ubiquiti.
I could elaborate on the configuration if you like.
Good Luck
PS you could always bury a cable ~ Ethernet specification support up to a 368' cable in length.

I would probably rent a ditch witch and run conduit with a cable. Looks like your nice and flat and dont have too many obstacles.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
What you need is a wifi bridge.
Each unit would need line of sight and face each other.
....
As far as equipment brands a couple of companies that do this well are EnGenius and Ubiquiti.
I could elaborate on the configuration if you like.
Good Luck
PS you could always bury a cable ~ Ethernet specification support up to a 368' cable in length.

Agree.

I've used both EnGenius and Ubiquiti with good results, at multiple locations.

I generally try to avoid underground Ethernet "cable", ie CAT5/6... copper, around here because, lightning. I would say that probably applies to his location as well. Fiber would be better underground, but probably overkill.

Perhaps something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod..._title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have a couple pairs laying around, actually.

I used the EnGenius to bridge to this sign, actually...

The photo helps considerably. You have Line of Sight between the buildings, an unobstructed view between house and barn. There are a few options:
1) If there is a conduit between house and barn you could pull an Ethernet cable between the two. Maximum length of an Ethernet cable is 100 meters so you are likely within the distance. The house end plugs into your existing router, either the one you installed or the one the ISP installed. Everyone I have seen has at least 4 ports. The barn end plugs into a Wireless Access Point.
2) If you can’t pull cable, Long Range Repeaters like this will do the job. https://www.simplewifi.com/col...eatured-product-wifi. I have no experience with this company but the advice is spot on. If you go this approach go with a directional antenna. The downside is that they look like this: https://www.simplewifi.com/pro...riant=31229982376030. The upside is that you reduce the opportunity for signal squatting by limiting the scope of the signal to the direction of your barn.

3) I have experience with Ubiquiti gear, good stuff but introduces a level of complexity that you may not want.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:

I generally try to avoid underground Ethernet "cable", ie CAT5/6... copper, around here because, lightning.

This. So either wireless, or all-dielectric (i.e., no metal) fiber. The fiber itself isn't overly expensive, but termination is more difficult, plus you need some sort of media conversion on each end. Not rocket science, but not big-box off-the-shelf either.

 
You do not want to run copper (ethernet cable) between two locations with different ground potentials (as is your case). This will lead to frying network equipment in the event of a lightning strike or any other event that alters the ground potential (electrical surge, e.g.). Fiber, or wireless point-to-point, are the acceptable solutions.

Someone here on the forum did this already, but I can't remember who. Maybe it'll jog someone else's memory. As I recall, he used an EnGenius long rang wireless bridge and had success with it after getting the settings right.

Nvm. I see smschulz said it was JALLEN. I stepped away while writing my post and didn't see his post. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Someone here on the forum did this already, but I can't remember who. Maybe it'll jog someone else's memory. As I recall, he used an EnGenius long rang wireless bridge and had success with it.

Well I don't know who "someone" is, but I do this for a living, all the time, sooo...

My barn is about the same distance from my house. I looked at all the options for getting internet to my barn and ended up buying direct bury cat5e. I just buried the cable deep enough across the yard where a mower won't damage it and ran it through galvanized pipe under the barn driveway (already had a couple 10 foot pieces of 1 inch galvanized laying around).

I put a netgear router I wasn't using in access point mode in the barn and I'm getting speeds similar to what I get on the house wifi.

I, too, used to do this kind of thing for a living. What members henryaz, TomV, smschulz, and stoic-one suggested: Either buried fiber-optic cable or a point-to-point wireless bridge.

The FO cable would have the advantage of the best possible performance. It would also be the most expensive and labour-intensive.

I would not run Ethernet cable due to the lightning susceptibility and the non-common power sources.

Personally, I'd probably use an Ubiquiti or EnGenius point-to-point wireless bridge.

Forget trying to use your existing WAP for the house end of the bridge. You want dedicated devices on each end, that are directional, and talk only to one another.

Since it's line-of-sight, with no intervening vegetation, a pair of these should work just fine: Ubiquiti Nanostation NSM5, 5GHz, 802.11a/n Hi-power 20 dBm Minimum, 2x2 MIMO AirMax TDMA PoE Station. You will want to mount these on the outside of the structures, facing one another. Thus you should use outdoor-rated Ethernet cable to connect to them. It need not be shielded, in this case, IMO.

(I only cited the Ubiquiti product because I'm familiar with the line.)

Then, if all you want in the barn is WiFi-connected devices, something like this EnGenius EAP1300 Technologies 11ac Wave 2 Indoor Wireless Access Point mounted centrally in the barn. (You'll need a PoE injector for it.)

(I prefer EnGenius APs because they don't need a separate management client, like Ubiquiti APs do.)

So:

house LAN <-> NSM5 <- air -> NSM5 <-> WAP in barn

If you wanted wired devices in the barn, as well, then add a network switch and plug the barn WiFi AP into that.

house LAN <-> NSM5 <- air -> NSM5 <-> switch <-> WAP

If you make the switch one with some PoE ports on it, to power the WAP, you won't need a separate PoE injector.

The Ubiquiti devices include PoE injectors.

quote:

Originally posted by DougE:
My barn is about the same distance from my house. I looked at all the options for getting internet to my barn and ended up buying direct bury cat5e. I just buried the cable deep enough across the yard where a mower won't damage it and ran it through galvanized pipe under the barn driveway ...

One should never run UTP cable in metallic conduit. It's not designed for it. Doing so actually degrades its performance.

If you want to run buried Ethernet cable my recommendation is bury-rated cable installed in PVC.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ensigmatic,

quote:

One should never run UTP cable in metallic conduit. It's not designed for it. Doing so actually degrades its performance.

If you want to run buried Ethernet cable you should use bury-rated cable installed in PVC.

I did use direct bury rated cable. Only 20 feet of the cable is in metal pipe. I didn't know you shouldn't and did so because tractors are regularly driven over top of it where it crosses my barn driveway.

I'm seeing pretty much the same performance in the barn as I do in my house, at any rate.

DougE, I wasn't criticizing what you did. Besides: What's done is done. I only mentioned it so others reading the thread in the future would know using metallic conduit for Ethernet cable is not recommended.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
DougE, I wasn't criticizing what you did. Besides: What's done is done. I only mentioned it so others reading the thread in the future would know using metallic conduit for Ethernet cable is not recommended.

I didn't really take it as criticism. I was just clarifying my reason for doing it the way I did.

Thank you everyone.

I really appreciate the help.

A

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
Thank you everyone.

You're welcome. Note I added this to my wireless bridge recommendation: "You will want to mount these on the outside of the structures, facing one another. Thus you should use outdoor-rated Ethernet cable to connect to them. It need not be shielded, in this case, IMO."

I just installed 2 Linksys Velop MX5300 Mesh WiFi 6 routers.
Incredible range,penetration,and speed.
Might be worth a try, easy install, if it doesn't solve your problem, return it.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
<snip>
One should never run UTP cable in metallic conduit. It's not designed for it. Doing so actually degrades its performance.
<snip>

Can you cite something for this? The BICSI TDMM (14th Edition, 2020, Chapter 5, Horizontal pathways) has all sorts of rules for how metallic conduit is used (fill, no signal and power in same pipe, bonding, bends, etc.), but no prohibition or claims of degraded performance that I can find.

From the TDMM p. 5-70:

quote:

A conduit system consists of conduits installed from the applicable telecommunications space
(e.g., ER, TR) to the telecommunications outlets/connectors in the floors, ceilings, walls,
columns, or furniture in a building (see Figures 5.24 and 5.25).