Swahili Instruction Manual

DaleB said:
Yeah. Back in the late 80s I helped sort out some issues at Fruehauf, where my Dad was the VP of product engineering. They had a big (like 8' or larger) CNC plasma cutter that went through inch thick aluminum like it was butter. The PC driving it (an IBM 5150) was in another building, with a couple hundred feet of RS232 serial between them. They had to run a pretty low baud rate, as I recall, like 2400-ish.
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We ran full duplex 9600 baud between DEC PDP-11s and a proprietary Z-80 SBC. I swear those DEC RS-232 driver chips were way above spec. They would do amazing stuff. I also had to write an entire suite of serial diagnostics for the 8150 serial chip in the IBM-PC. I really learned the ins and outs of 232 comms on that chip.

If you run unshielded 232 cable, don't leave the excess coiled up on top of a fluorescent light. See this scar? :)

John
 
DaleB said:
There’s standards, and then there’s what actually works. Ask me about my RS-232 interface some time.
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Of course. I've exceeded the standards, too. They tend to be quite conservative. But digging trenches tends to attract inspectors, and some of them enjoy busting chops.

Rich
 
DaleB said:
Nah. It's just Chinglish.
You're not the target audience for those devices, since you want to do more than just plug them in and use the default settings. If you want better documentation, there's Cisco... real Cisco, not that consumer market crap... but that route has its own set of frustrations.

Good luck to you.
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Real Cisco requires a professional. However there is Meraki, which is manageable by an end user.

Or Unifi - my home network is Unifi. It has more than paid for itself in terms of reduced frustration costs.
 
OK, here we go one last time. House and lab are separated by about 50 meters of stuff you really don't want to dig a trench around/under (water pipes, electrical service, septic tanks, ...).

Signal comes down from 30m up in a cedar tree via CAT-5 cable into the lab where it is processed by a TP-Link N600, which wirelessly fills the lab with enough signal to get 5 bars on any device in any corner of the lab. Name of the wireless signal is RST .

I walk over to the house with my laptop and downstairs I'm lucky to get 1 bar. In an upstairs window facing the window in the lab i'm getting two bars. But, don't forget, the antennas in a laptop are by definition not optimum.

I have a Linksys RE4000W which is a little box about the size of a pack of cigs in that upstairs window. For better or for worse, it has the same wireless signal name, RST. Now I get 5 bars in any device all over the house, but the wife says that her internet downstairs is slow. Roku gets its signal from the wireless and I'm not sure but what between Roku and internet I'm sucking bandwidth that the Linksys can't handle.

So, I've got a D-Link DIR-615 that I've been trying to program all morning with zero results. All I want to do is configure it as a wireless range extender, which the manual claims to permit. I've looked at the manual and YouTube videos until I'm blue in the face and I must be missing something important, because I keep getting either blind alleys or strange error messages.

Any help at this point would be appreciated.

ADDENDUM: speedtest.net shows 6G down, 1.5 up in the lab and the same exact speed in the house. So much for the range extender being the choke point for data.

Jim
 
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I'm kinda new here, I usually just lurk, but I had this exact same issue with the D-Link 615. The stock firmware will not let you set it up as a wireless repeater. To solve the problem I downloaded a new firmware called DD-WRT and reflashed the router with it. With the new firmware, and a lot of trial and error, I was able to successfully set it up as a wireless repeater.
 
weirdjim said:
So, I've got a D-Link DIR-615 that I've been trying to program all morning with zero results. All I want to do is configure it as a wireless range extender, which the manual claims to permit.

ADDENDUM: speedtest.net shows 6G down, 1.5 up in the lab and the same exact speed in the house. So much for the range extender being the choke point for data.

Jim
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I have carefully reviewed this manual for the DIR-615

https://eu.dlink.com/-/media/Consumer_Products/DIR/DIR 615/manual/DIR-615_Q1_Manual_v17_00_EU.pdf

Nowhere does it mention its use other than as a straight Access Point. No range extender, no client mode, no bridge mode.

As mentioned below it is quite likely that with dd-wrt you could use this router in various mode options that would get the result you wish. Take care with dd-wrt to check the router's hardware revision. Manufacturers often change the internal hardware completely between revisions any you may need to take care to use the correct dd-wrt or you might brick the unit.

"ADDENDUM: speedtest.net shows 6G down, 1.5 up in the lab and the same exact speed in the house. So much for the range extender being the choke point for data."

I am AMAZED that you are getting the "range extender" to work over a distance of 50m. My, limited, experience with these things is that they are quite poor.

I would use different SSIDs for the LAB and the house if possible. Otherwise an end device might use the wrong one. The documentation says it can cover 7500 square feet. That's 85 x 85 ft. With the device in the middle that gives a range of about 45 ft.

My tool of choice to troubleshoot wireless connectivity with Windows is fping.exe.

You can set it to do a continuous ping. As soon as it gets a reply it sends another one. Locally you can get 1,000 packets a second or more.


C:\Users\Y\Stick\Tools>fping

Fast pinger version 3.00
(c) Wouter Dhondt (http://www.kwakkelflap.com)

Domain now gone but software still around it seems at - https://fping.org

Usual caveats about downloading software from the internet. Don't do it. At least this does not need to be installed and as far as I recall does not need admin access.

If you have it running at 1,000 packets per sec or more you get to notice the smallest drop out in the wireless.
 
Jim, I think you'd be better off just using equipment designed for what you're trying to do than piecing together parts that aren't. If I had the same problem to solve, I'd be looking at something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/EZ-Bridge-Lite-EZBR-0214-Outdoor-Wireless-System/dp/B002K683V0

It doesn't have to be that one, nor that brand. That was just the first one that came up when I did a search. Use your favorite search engine to search for "point-to-point wireless" and you'll find roughly 1.2 bazillion similar systems. But what you're looking to do is called "point-to-point wireless," so you may as well use equipment designed for that purpose. Most of these systems are designed to work over far greater distances than you need to cover, so any of them that get good reviews should work fine.

The essential problem is that your router almost certainly is limited to 100mW, and there's not much you can do about that. High-gain antennas might help some, but probably not very much. The radio in the linked system is 250mW, and the antennas are directional.

I'd use point-to-point equipment between the buildings and a simple WiFi access point in the house on a different SSID and channel from those in use in the lab. It's more money (though not much) up front, but it will be a better and more permanent solution. There may also be point-to-point systems with built-in WiFi on the "far" end, but I didn't search for one.

Rich
 
Nope. Outdoor is not acceptable. I've been running this link in reverse for fifteen years until the fir tree next to the house that the terrestrial isp microwave antenna was in died and we had to move the antenna to the cedar tree next to the lab. It has always worked flawlessly from the same spot in the house to the same spot in the lab, and reciprocity being what it is, it works just fine going the other way. WIth the exception that the XYL's internet is slow with her Roku on. That may be a hiccup that we are just going to have to accept.

If I knew what the required signal strength at the receive antenna needed to be, calculating the allowable path loss is trivial. I suspect the open field (which is pretty much what a grass and weeds lawn is) theoretical range with 0 dbi antennas at both ends is going to be something measured in hundreds if not thousands of meters for a 100 mw transmitter.

Jim
 
Back in the day when wifi was just getting started, I remember some hack where you could run wire around the outside of a Pringles can to "steal" someone else's wifi. This was before it was password protected, forget the setup but might still be out on the interweb somewhere
 
Hang 4 said:
Back in the day when wifi was just getting started, I remember some hack where you could run wire around the outside of a Pringles can to "steal" someone else's wifi. This was before it was password protected, forget the setup but might still be out on the interweb somewhere
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The "cantenna." Actually worked pretty well.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
The "cantenna." Actually worked pretty well.

Rich
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Just be sure you don't build the Heathkit version of the "Cantenna"... a 1 KW oil filled dummy load. A "full gallon", if you'll pardon the expression, of RF absorption.
 
The classic was a 5# Folger's can with a BNC drilled through the can a quarter wave from the bottom of the can, short whip soldered to the BNC center conductor. Hell of a horn antenna.

Jim
 
Somedudeintn said:
I can’t speak anything to that specific product, but I’ve been really impressed with my UniFi home network and the ease of managing and setting it up.
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Same here.. Just need them to drop some L3 switches so I can move away from their router on stick topology. And a firewall that will support 1Gbps ingest with IDS/IPS enabled that doesn't cost a mint.
 
Somedudeintn said:
I can’t speak anything to that specific product, but I’ve been really impressed with my UniFi home network and the ease of managing and setting it up.
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Same here. Easy to set up. Haven't touched it since.
 
weirdjim said:
I rest my case.

Jim
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weirdjim said:
I rest my case twice. If this keeps up I'm gonna open that case and have a few beers out of it.

Jim
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If you don’t know what either of those mean or can’t google them and read, you really have no business setting up any sort of network until you’ll make even the tiniest of effort.

DD-WRT and OpenWRT have been around for close to two decades and the description Rich gave is using basic “Wireless Networking 101” terminology.

Understand we all have our specialities but you’re kinda whining that someone told you to “measure a resistor with a multimeter”, in your world. Those things are truly that basic in wireless networking.
 
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