extending wireless range?

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Has anyone had any experience setting up a router range extender?

I have a WRT54G wireless router on the desktop which connects to the Laptop via wireless conection which is in the shed about 20m away, the only problem is the laptops wireless antenna is built into the LCD screen and I only get limited or low coverage from the shed, it disconnects if I close the door.

Any ideas on how I can get better coverage without moving the computers closer?

I have tried the router in several different positions with little or no change.

[mill (Martin)]

Is the shed some kind of metal?
In that case it will act as an faraday cage and block signals.
What you could do is put an small antenna on the roof of the shed and feed it inside the shed to an small circuitboard (just the plain old one sided copper one.
The signal won't be optimal but it will be inside the shed that way.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Buy a cheap WAP for the shed and a suitable external antenna then feed the lappy by ethernet from the wap and disable the internal wireless. There are some good budget WAP's for under $100 at this dealer. They also have gain antennas suitable for outdoor mounting. I have a mate with a link working over 5Km using this type of hardware and modified ex Austar antennas.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

can you put a larger antenna on the router ?

[noelo]

If you are up for some technical work you could replace the standard WRT54g firmware with a "enhanced" version from the internet. The one I used both here and at home is a version called "ddwrt". Using this firmware allows you to do a lot more with the router as well as boosting the signal.
This firmware isn't the only one available but it is one of the best. Be aware that there is a possibility of damaging the router if you perform the upgrade incorrectly. The instructions with the firmware go through all of this though.

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G under the section Third Party firmware projects.
Another trick is to use a CD to hang off the antenna (shiny side up) on the router to more or less guide the signal to where you want it.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Thanks guys, will look at the options separately and see how they go.