Internet in my FARADAY CAGE !!!

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lgoochy

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So I have been building my man cave at the bottom of the garden.

I have a wifi extender plugged into the conservatory which boosts the wifi to the bottom of the garden and therefore thought no problem.

However I have insulated the mancave so well with PIR boards and aluminium tape and fitted Aluminium bifolds and windows I have accidentally built a Faraday Cage.

I cannot even get a mobile phone signal inside it and only realised this when the glazing went it.

Any help appreciated with the following

The main router in the house is in the middle of the house. I have concrete floors so running a Cat5 cable from it is going to be nigh on impossible.

I have a wireless extender I have has a network cable plug on it and I have plugged a cable into this and it connects ok to my laptop. So I was thinking of using this device to connect the cable to and run the cable from this to the man cave. What do I need inside the mancave ? Another router ? A matching wireless booster ?

Any idea on how I can get a mobile phone signal boosted inside it ?

I plan to use the mancave as an office for work so this really is a problem for me. £ 8K in and I cannot even use it for what I intended to use it for.
 
Please think before using powerline, here is some reading

https://www.ban-plt.org.uk/
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...te-owners-bad-powerline-network-adapters.html

The spurious radiation from power line equipment and mains cables can affect FM radio reception and DAB radio reception both in your house and your neighbours.

Some sellers of power line quote this LINK as a support for domestic use of power line technology. This is for very low speed data along the cable of the electrical distribution network ( 11kV and above ) and the carrier frequencies do radiate spurious electrical noise.
 
How about putting a access point that has an ethernet socket on it on the outside of the shed and link the ethernet into a switch/router inside?
I wonder if that can work? (obviously put it in a waterproof enclosure.
 
bernardgreen said:
Please think before using powerline, here is some reading

https://www.ban-plt.org.uk/
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...te-owners-bad-powerline-network-adapters.html

The spurious radiation from power line equipment and mains cables can affect FM radio reception and DAB radio reception both in your house and your neighbours.

Some sellers of power line quote this LINK as a support for domestic use of power line technology. This is for very low speed data along the cable of the electrical distribution network ( 11kV and above ) and the carrier frequencies do radiate spurious electrical noise.
Click to expand...
Yeah but for 30 or 40 quid and two minutes work, It'd be the first thing I’d try.
 
For even less, and not causing as much crap to be chucked out, this can be stuck to the outside of the shed and as long as it can see your network and is paired should give internet access via the USB cable - which in the shed can go into a switch to give multiple wired access points or a old router to give wifi.

Obviously needs checking out first to ensure that data is on the USB cable and not just power.
 
If the wifi extender is managing to have good access to your main router, then all you need is a CAT5 cable from that, into your man cave and the back of your laptop. Even better, would be a CAT5 cable all the way - from your main router, all the way to the back of your laptop in the man cave.

I don't trust powerline to work well, from personal experience it can be quite dodgy.

You can buy ready made mobile phone network boosters, for when there is a poor indoor signal.
 
If you have run a mains cable to supply the man cave then you could ( should ) have run in data / phone cables. Is it too late to do that ?
 
As HB above says, definitely try and run a cable for as much of the run as possible. At the office end you probably just need a network switch to give you a few more ports. You can usually use an old router for this as well (I do) but a simple switch is very cheap https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RQHL251/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and you don't need to set anything up. The only advantage of using an old router (which then acts as just a switch) is you can usually use it's WiFi as well to give you a separate access point in the office (which is what I do). (You just turn off DHCP on the second router and give it a fixed IP in the subnet range of your home network. - it also helps to give it an IP address outside the DHCP range dished out by your no1 router, so if your main router DHCP range is say 192.168.178 2-200 you could give the second router a fixed IP address of 192.168.178.201 and the DHCP will never dish this IP out to anything else because it's outside the normal range)
 
mrrusty said:
As HB above says, definitely try and run a cable for as much of the run as possible. At the office end you probably just need a network switch to give you a few more ports. You can usually use an old router for this as well (I do) but a simple switch is very cheap https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RQHL251/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and you don't need to set anything up.
Click to expand...

All good advice and exactly what I have done. I run one main router in the loft, then a second one, a repurposed old router on the ground floor. One of the four ports connected to the main router, leaving three ports for local use. A third router (Print Server) is in my small bedroom where I have several printers - all of which is only switched on when print is needed. Added to that, I have a wifi extender in my garden hut to help improve coverage into my garage and the garden. The latter item I have only just added, to improve wifi coverage to some Smart Plugs in the garage.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
If the wifi extender is managing to have good access to your main router, then all you need is a CAT5 cable from that, into your man cave and the back of your laptop. Even better, would be a CAT5 cable all the way - from your main router, all the way to the back of your laptop in the man cave.

I don't trust powerline to work well, from personal experience it can be quite dodgy.

You can buy ready made mobile phone network boosters, for when there is a poor indoor signal.
Click to expand...
I tried this and my laptop works fine.

I then got an old router and plugged this into the wifi booster and thats when I started having issues. Very hit and miss and I kept having to reboot the booster. Not s long term solution really.
 
bernardgreen said:
If you have run a mains cable to supply the man cave then you could ( should ) have run in data / phone cables. Is it too late to do that ?
Click to expand...
Bit late to do that. Possible but loads of messing around sendign the cable through two internal walls and then an external wall. Looking for more of an out of the box solution really. Thats if there is one,
 
mrrusty said:
As HB above says, definitely try and run a cable for as much of the run as possible. At the office end you probably just need a network switch to give you a few more ports. You can usually use an old router for this as well (I do) but a simple switch is very cheap https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RQHL251/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and you don't need to set anything up. The only advantage of using an old router (which then acts as just a switch) is you can usually use it's WiFi as well to give you a separate access point in the office (which is what I do). (You just turn off DHCP on the second router and give it a fixed IP in the subnet range of your home network. - it also helps to give it an IP address outside the DHCP range dished out by your no1 router, so if your main router DHCP range is say 192.168.178 2-200 you could give the second router a fixed IP address of 192.168.178.201 and the DHCP will never dish this IP out to anything else because it's outside the normal range)
Click to expand...
That would be my ideal plan but the cable run is painful. Thinkign of trying one of these mesh systems and see if I can plug one in inside nearest the mancave and one in the mancave. See if I can piggy back it into the cave that way.
 
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