Extending the antennas on router.

[Hornnumb2]

My router has 4 antennas, could I run some rg6 with BNC connectors and put the antenna say 30 feet away to get better coverage through my home? Thanks

[Uranium-235]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

I generally just get a commercial AP (unifi) with extended range and disable the radio on the router

Wifi RF can be tricky sometimes

[redwire]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

Coax cable is terrible at WiFi frequencies, for losses. You want the shortest coax run possible to an antenna. Otherwise you'd lose all the gain from a big antenna. RG-6 is not good for microwave frequencies either. RG-6 30' at 2.4GHZ is -5dB or about 2/3 less power.
I would look at getting higher gain antennas and connecting those to the router, you'd have to know if they have MMCX plugs or what on the circuit board. Some don't even have real antennas, they are fake and the antenna is on the PC board.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

As I said, fucking with wifi antennas is not an easy thing. Run an ethernet cable to the middle of your area and put/mount this there

https://store.ui.com/products/u6-lr-us

Follow instructions, plug in the POE and you have a good coverage AP with wifi6 (and of course AC and 2.4ghz and all that jaz

[keeney123]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

Coax cable is terrible at WiFi frequencies, for losses. You want the shortest coax run possible to an antenna. Otherwise you'd lose all the gain from a big antenna. RG-6 is not good for microwave frequencies either. RG-6 30' at 2.4GHZ is -5dB or about 2/3 less power.
I would look at getting higher gain antennas and connecting those to the router, you'd have to know if they have MMCX plugs or what on the circuit board. Some don't even have real antennas, they are fake and the antenna is on the PC board.

How about some fiber optic cable?

[petehall347]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

4 antennas sort of says you should have more routers . think its called mesh or something .

[redwire]

Re: Extending the antennas on router.

First look for barriers to WiFi signals - any metal, concrete, wire mesh lath and plaster, anything with water including plants and trees - greatly block the signal.
Second, is if the neighborhood is WiFi busy, such as apartment blocks with dozens of routers, you will find more time is spent by the router changing channels than actually sending your data. Or kids streaming videos and games hogging bandwidth. You might go into the router configuration menus and check for monkey business, kids get the router password and give themselves full speed but not for ma and pa.

Ethernet is king, copper wire/fibre optic cable faster than radio so if you can hardwire up to the router - do it.
Routers also have capacitor failures, and in the 12VDC power adapter as well, so if you are having issues it might be time to recap.
I've also had DoS attacks slow things down, all supposedly from Apple.com not sure what their security problem is.

It's best to get into the router configuration menu, look at signal strengths etc. or if other people can access the network (just change the passwords).