[TriLUG] Wifi Bridge

[Bill Farrow via TriLUG]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 9:57 AM, C TC via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> I'm curious about the info below.
> With a single transceiver, would using the same length antenna
> cables (on both sides) solve the issue; or are you saying the antennas
> need to "see" each other? > Not have a metal wall between them.

Wifi Router/AP/Extenders are designed with two antennas to help with
multipath signal problems. The antenna are optimally spaced to ensure
that at least one of them will receive a strong signal.
  http://www.antennaplus.com/TechCenter/understanding-diversity.aspx

If you place one antenna outside, and one inside, both antennas will
suffer from deadspots as the environment around them changes. The
other issue is that the wifi transceiver could decide to switch off
the antenna that is getting low signal strength.

Think about it this way. The wifi extender receives a packet from the
antenna outside. If it doesn't hear an ACK for that packet within a
short period of time, it re-broadcasts it - which antenna will it use
? Most likely it will have decided that the one that it received it on
has the best signal to noise ration (SNR) and it will use that
antenna. The laptop inside the shed will not hear the packet, and the
external wifi will be degraded by duplicate packets taking up
bandwidth.

Bill