Can you hook up a cantenna to a WiFi range extender?

dekw04

Solid State Member
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11
Location
USA
Hi everyone.

I was wondering, can you hook up a cantenna to a WiFi range extender?

The benefit of doing this would be to get a significantly stronger WiFi signal by using a cantenna while at the same time not being required to have a computer (e.g. a laptop) connected to the cantenna via a cable to make it work.

The WiFi signal extender would extend the stronger WiFi signal from the cantenna to nearby computers without needing to physically connect any of those computers to the cantenna at all.

The end result would be that you would get the benefit of significantly stronger cantenna WiFi without having to have a cable physically connected to any of your computers.

You would also be able to use the stronger WiFi signal obtained by the the cantenna in more places than you would if your computer were physically tethered to a cantenna. This would be due to the WiFi range extender extending the signal from the cantenna.

In other words, it would be a much more convenient way to get stronger WiFi by using a cantenna than it would be to connect a cantenna to a computer via a cable.

I might have a way in which this could be done, but I wanted to ask everyone here as I haven't yet found anything online about this particular idea.

I had the thought that you could theoretically connect a cantenna to a WiFi range extender using an Ethernet cable, however, the WiFi range extender would have to be one that came with a built-in Ethernet port.

Instead of connecting the cantenna to your computer via a cable, you would instead plug the end of the cantenna cable into the Ethernet port of the WiFi range extender.

You would just have to use the appropriate adapter to bridge the connections.

Then, at least in theory, the cantenna should send the WiFi signal to the WiFi range extender which would then extend that signal to the devices on the WiFi network.

With that being said, can you combine a cantenna with a WiFi range extender in the way I've described above?

If it can't be done in this way, can it be done in another way? It seems as though it would be very beneficial to hook up these two devices.

Thank you.
 
The setup you describe might work but not reliable. You probably would get the reduced speed of internet all around.

Use a power-line Ethernet adapter you can move the extender anywhere without a cantenna, still there will be reduced speeds but not as bad as one you described. You really need higher bandwidth to support extenders
 
The setup you describe might work but not reliable. You probably would get the reduced speed of internet all around.

Use a power-line Ethernet adapter you can move the extender anywhere without a cantenna, still there will be reduced speeds but not as bad as one you described. You really need higher bandwidth to support extenders

I tried this about a year ago I was a few feet out of range from wifi in the main house. There are tons of youtube tutorials out there on how to extend your range, as mentioned above with almost every one of them I lost connection strength. I even went as far as buying a wifi repeater it helped a bit but its still slow when compared to being on the legit wifi signal.
 
The best luck I had involved a USB extension cable, a USB wifi dongle, and some aluminum foil. Using a bowl I shaped several layers of foil around the outside of it (for stiffness). I then removed the foil from the bowl and cut a hole in the "bottom" of it just big enough for the female end of the extension cable to come through. I secured this with tape and made sure that the foil did not touch the metal of the extension cable. I plugged the dongle into the extension cable and the extension cable into my PC. Then I aimed my home-made parabolic dish at the signal source and BAM! I was in business.
 
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