Extending Internet to detached building

Question

I'd like to extend my home wifi to my detached garage. I have decent signal outside the building, about 100' & 2 walls from the home wireless transmitter. But now that I've put the steel siding up, I get nothing inside. I'm thinking of mounting a high gain antenna like this: HAWKING HAO14SDP Hi-Gain 14dBi Outdoor Directional Antenna Kit on the outside of the building.

And then running the cable through the wall to some sort of repeater/extender/wireless access point. But I'm not sure exactly what I need for the inside. Maybe something like this: HAWKING HWREN2 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Range Extender Pro, but take off one of the antennas and connect it to the external directional antenna?

It would be nice to have something wall or ceiling mounted, but I haven't found something like that with an external antenna connection. Shop area totals about 1000ft^2.

Any suggestions?

edit: This looks like exactly what I need, but pricey, especially till I by the $70 outdoor antenna. Hawking Technology HAW2R1 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Smart Repeater Pro

What about Powerline Networking? Bear in mind, this would have to go through 1 or 2 subpanels, and some stuff I'll be using in the garage tends to be pretty electrically noisy.

Answer 1

Keep in mind that the feedline (coax cable) going from the access point to the external antenna will drop your signal strength. Here's a good quote from SuperUser on this topic:

"A common relatively inexpensive cable for short runs of WiFi antennas is LMR100. At 2.4 GHz (the common WiFi band), 15 feet of LMR100 will result in signal loss of about 6 dB. That's equivalent to dropping power to just 25% of what it was. (Each 3 dB = 50% gain or loss in power)"

If it looks like you would have to run a long feedline, an alternative is to use an outdoor access point. You'd place it on the outside of your garage, set it up as a wireless client, and wire it with ethernet to the access point inside the garage.

Answer 2

You'd likely need two of those high-gain antennas in order to get the range you want - one on your existing router in your house, and one connected to an access point / repeater / extender in your garage.

Your best bet is to run ethernet cable from the house to your garage, and then connect an access point (usually just a regular wifi router with a static IP and DHCP turned off). When running the cable from the house, dig a trench and put conduit down, then run the cable through the conduit.

Your signal will be so much more reliable with wires, and this gives you the option to connect multiple APs in the garage if needed. Further, using a wireless extender or repeater will cut your speeds in half, since it has to use wireless for both transmitting and receiving.