Increase your WiFi range while Camping. Hi everyone.
Leo Notenboom here for Ask Leo.com. This
is the situation I found myself in last week.
I was in my trailer camping at a family members.
We like to basically take our own bedroom, bathroom and kitchen along with us.
But where we were, we had two problems.
One is that one of the solutions I
typically use for connectivity when I'm in the trailer is a little WiFi MyFi.
It's basically something that is provided
by my mobile company that is essentially a portable mobile hotspot.
It connects up to the mobile network and provides me with a WiFi connection.
Unfortunately, the mobile connection in general for it or for my phone or
whatever, was really marginal to the extent that it would drop fairly often.
Now, there was also Wi Fi on premises, but unfortunately the WiFi signal,
the way I had things positioned, was particularly weak.
Again, we could get on it occasionally,
but unfortunately it wasn't really strong enough to maintain a connection and do
some of the things that I needed to or wanted to do.
So I decided that it was time
for an experiment because while I was visiting a family member last
week, this is a situation that I've run into before while camping.
Wifi is provided by wherever you happen
to be, but you really don't have any control over how good it is,
how strong it is, and where it is with respect to where you end up parking.
So the experiment that I ran was to try a WiFi range extender.
I got one.
I ended up purchasing a TP-Link AC750 WiFi Extender.
It's small, it's convenient.
It is something that I could just plug into one of the outlets in my trailer
and assuming it would work, let it do its magic.
Now, the important thing about a WiFi
range extender, the thing you need to realize is that it
is another hop, it's another link in the chain.
What that means is that your speed might be impacted somewhat by using an extender.
The issue is that rather than your data going from your computer, my laptop,
in my case, to the eventual hotspot, it has to take a detour.
It goes to the range extender and then from the range extender onto the hotspot.
And yeah, that takes time because what happens is the range extender receives all
of the data before it can turn around and pass it on to the hotspot.
The idea behind a range extender is
that if you've got a distance between your laptop or your device wanting to use WiFi
and the access point that has a weak signal, the range extender can live
somewhere in the middle where it's close enough to the access point to be able
to receive and send a strong signal there and close enough to your device.
My laptop, in my case,
to be able to provide and send a strong signal there as well.
Now it's a little bit iffy in my case, the reason I keep calling it an experiment
is because in reality, it's going to be super close to my laptop.
Right?
Trailers aren't big, so we've got it at one end of the trailer,
I've got it plugged in, and the laptop is doing its thing.
And sure enough, it's got a nice strong signal, as I would expect.
The real part of the experiment, the real experimental part of this, was
that I wasn't sure if the issues that were causing my WiFi signal to be weak
for my laptop would also cause it to be equivalently weak for this range extender.
What I was betting on is that the range
extender is designed for exactly this situation.
It has bigger, more obvious antenna associated with it, unlike the laptop,
of course, where everything is kind of sort of hidden inside the box.
By its nature, that means that the antenna can't necessarily be as big and as obvious
and as powerful as the ones you might have for a dedicated purpose device.
And sure enough, I plugged it in. I configured it.
There's definitely some configuration involved, but it really did the trick.
Not only was it getting and sending a strong signal to the WiFi access point
on premises, but like I said, I'm really close to it inside of my trailer.
So I get a really strong signal there as well.
And my transmission speeds went from basically pokey,
to use a technical term, pokey and dropping occasionally, which is,
of course, the most frustrating part of it.
There's a certain amount of speed
degradation we're willing to tolerate in situations like that,
but when it gets so bad that connections are dropping, that becomes a nonstarter.
Anyway, it went from pokey to full speed.
As far as I could tell, the WiFi range extender and my WiFi
in general was no longer the limiting factor.
The limiting factor was the upstream ISP connection.
So all in all, it was a very, very successful experiment and something
that I would recommend for you to try in situations where you might end up
with Wi Fi signals that you want to use that are out of your control,
to bring them closer in a way that perhaps would allow you to connect more securely,
more strongly or whatever, wherever you happen to be.
Now, one of the pieces of pushback that I
expect to get... Leo, you're using WiFi and you're camping?
Just disconnect already.
That's what camping is all about.
Well, it may be true for you. Absolutely.
I get that.
And there are times absolutely what I need and want to disconnect.
This wasn't one of them.
And in fact, like I said, this was a family visit, not a vacation.
So it was important that I be able
to remain connected and run Asl Leo!, do the things that I do outside of Ask Leo!
and so forth. Basically remain online for the duration of that visit.
Nonetheless when we do go camping
there are campsites we go to that have WiFi provided and absolutely
I never really disconnect completely. In most situations I'm at least checking
email because I need to remain in contact with the people that are taking care
of my house or our friends or whomever and making sure that there aren't
emergencies happening with respect to the business.
So regardless of whether or not you should or should not disconnect while camping,
it's important to be able to understand that when you need to stay connected
there are ways to make it better, stronger and more reliable.
Anyway, if you ever find yourself
in a situation like this, I hope this helps. For Updates
for comments, for related links and more visit Askleo.com/145176.
I'm Leo Notenboom and this is askleo.com. Thanks for watching.