I wanted to beam wifi across the street and down three doors for my 82 year old mother who feels she would like to begin using a tablet computer. There was no sense in signing her up for cable broadband. She just won't use it enough.
I tried my local brick and mortar store, who gave me some D-Link and Linksys units to try. No joy. Signal did not carry anywhere near far enough. It seems that typical routers have 50 to 100 mW of power (though it is often difficult to find out for sure as these specs are seldom printed).
My web search turned up a line of high power routers and wifi repeaters (boosters) from Amped Wireless. The Amped units use dual 600 mW transmitters. Quite a difference.
I had to order them from an online store (Walmart, Best Buy online, Amazon) as no one in Calgary seems to stock them. Walmart was 3 days from order to doorstep, despite using Canada Post.
This is GOOD equipment, and Amped Wireless supports Linux. It is even mentioned that they do on their website.
My brother and I ran an ethernet cable down through the floor in his living room, across the floor joists, and out through a dryer vent on the front of the house, installing the Amped R10000G router outside in a sheltered area, and then covering it with an upside down plastic food container screwed down to a wooden surface. Once hooked up, I went through the setup procedure, and had the router sending out a good signal. The default subnet of the Amped unit is 192.168.1.x, and the existing router in my brother's place was 192.168.0.x, so we were already in good shape.
Then we took the Amped Wireless SR10000 wifi repeater (booster / range extender / whatever you want to call it) over to my mother's place, across the street and 3 doors down, and set it up in a window facing my brother's place. I plugged my laptop into it via ethernet cable, and ran the browser-based setup program. It 'saw' the router across the street when the setup program did a scan for available networks. The instructions say that for full-speed connections, one needs an indicated 70% signal strength. The router across the street came in loud and clear at 83%, so even with about 150' and one window between them, the two units were not even working hard to connect with each other. The default subnet of the repeater is an intelligent 192.168.3.x, so these guys thought this through. No conflicts anywhere.
One runs the setup wizard on both units by connecting through a wired connection (ethernet) to the unit, typing in either the IP address, or better still, http://setup.ampedwireless.com, which goes to the setup program in the device if that is all that is available, or goes to the Amped Wireless webpage if an Internet connection is available. Not only that, but if you change the base subnet, and then you want to log in via IP address, you have to carefully determine at what address the device is now at before you can connect. However, if you use the http://setup.ampedwireless.com address, the device responds no matter what IP address it is physically at. Slick. I found this particularly helpful as I was plugging a router into a router, and the address of the second router (the Amped unit) was dependent on where the first router assigned it.
I did run into an issue getting the SR10000 wireless repeater to connect to the R10000G router. The setup wizard ran, but failed to connect. I tried everything I could think of with no success. I then called Amped Wireless support number. I waited about 5 to 10 minutes for a tech, which is not bad, I guess. I explained to the fellow what I was doing, and that I was using Linux. No problem. He was not familiar with how to delete a wireless profile in the Kubuntu Network Manager, but I knew how to do that. Turns out that the somewhat older model repeater expects a single form of encryption, but the router is able to provide mixed formats, and the repeater does not understand that. There is a firmware update to fix this, but that is the hard way to do it. Instead, he had me enter the router setup, and turn off the mixed format, selecting just WPA2. Then, after a couple of reboots, the machines talked to each other. The tech support guy was good, knew his stuff, and they support Linux. I'm impressed.
So, my Mom now gets 4 out 5 bars signal on her 'hand me down' iPad in the living room, the spot furthest from the repeater. My sister gave her the iPad, and her daughters have been over showing Mom how to use it. I played with the iPad a bit while getting things set up for her. This is the first time I've used one. There is not a lot of difference between the iPad and my wife's Galaxy 10.1 tablet, other than the lack of widgets and a 'back' button on the iPad. Even my brother, who uses an iPad all the time had issues trying to get out of the browser. I guess one learns 'The Apple Way' easily enough with time, however.
So, as to the Amped Wireless hardware, you can be sure that I won't be buying anything else any more. These devices are really good! Their tech support is also very good. And they support Linux. Why would I buy anything else?
Highly recommended.
Frank.
I tried my local brick and mortar store, who gave me some D-Link and Linksys units to try. No joy. Signal did not carry anywhere near far enough. It seems that typical routers have 50 to 100 mW of power (though it is often difficult to find out for sure as these specs are seldom printed).
My web search turned up a line of high power routers and wifi repeaters (boosters) from Amped Wireless. The Amped units use dual 600 mW transmitters. Quite a difference.
I had to order them from an online store (Walmart, Best Buy online, Amazon) as no one in Calgary seems to stock them. Walmart was 3 days from order to doorstep, despite using Canada Post.
This is GOOD equipment, and Amped Wireless supports Linux. It is even mentioned that they do on their website.
My brother and I ran an ethernet cable down through the floor in his living room, across the floor joists, and out through a dryer vent on the front of the house, installing the Amped R10000G router outside in a sheltered area, and then covering it with an upside down plastic food container screwed down to a wooden surface. Once hooked up, I went through the setup procedure, and had the router sending out a good signal. The default subnet of the Amped unit is 192.168.1.x, and the existing router in my brother's place was 192.168.0.x, so we were already in good shape.
Then we took the Amped Wireless SR10000 wifi repeater (booster / range extender / whatever you want to call it) over to my mother's place, across the street and 3 doors down, and set it up in a window facing my brother's place. I plugged my laptop into it via ethernet cable, and ran the browser-based setup program. It 'saw' the router across the street when the setup program did a scan for available networks. The instructions say that for full-speed connections, one needs an indicated 70% signal strength. The router across the street came in loud and clear at 83%, so even with about 150' and one window between them, the two units were not even working hard to connect with each other. The default subnet of the repeater is an intelligent 192.168.3.x, so these guys thought this through. No conflicts anywhere.
One runs the setup wizard on both units by connecting through a wired connection (ethernet) to the unit, typing in either the IP address, or better still, http://setup.ampedwireless.com, which goes to the setup program in the device if that is all that is available, or goes to the Amped Wireless webpage if an Internet connection is available. Not only that, but if you change the base subnet, and then you want to log in via IP address, you have to carefully determine at what address the device is now at before you can connect. However, if you use the http://setup.ampedwireless.com address, the device responds no matter what IP address it is physically at. Slick. I found this particularly helpful as I was plugging a router into a router, and the address of the second router (the Amped unit) was dependent on where the first router assigned it.
I did run into an issue getting the SR10000 wireless repeater to connect to the R10000G router. The setup wizard ran, but failed to connect. I tried everything I could think of with no success. I then called Amped Wireless support number. I waited about 5 to 10 minutes for a tech, which is not bad, I guess. I explained to the fellow what I was doing, and that I was using Linux. No problem. He was not familiar with how to delete a wireless profile in the Kubuntu Network Manager, but I knew how to do that. Turns out that the somewhat older model repeater expects a single form of encryption, but the router is able to provide mixed formats, and the repeater does not understand that. There is a firmware update to fix this, but that is the hard way to do it. Instead, he had me enter the router setup, and turn off the mixed format, selecting just WPA2. Then, after a couple of reboots, the machines talked to each other. The tech support guy was good, knew his stuff, and they support Linux. I'm impressed.
So, my Mom now gets 4 out 5 bars signal on her 'hand me down' iPad in the living room, the spot furthest from the repeater. My sister gave her the iPad, and her daughters have been over showing Mom how to use it. I played with the iPad a bit while getting things set up for her. This is the first time I've used one. There is not a lot of difference between the iPad and my wife's Galaxy 10.1 tablet, other than the lack of widgets and a 'back' button on the iPad. Even my brother, who uses an iPad all the time had issues trying to get out of the browser. I guess one learns 'The Apple Way' easily enough with time, however.
So, as to the Amped Wireless hardware, you can be sure that I won't be buying anything else any more. These devices are really good! Their tech support is also very good. And they support Linux. Why would I buy anything else?
Highly recommended.
Frank.
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