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My understanding of wifi and other wireless communication such as cellphones and radio is that there are essentially two components, the frequency and the amplitude. Different frequencies allow for different signals to be transmitted at a time while an increase in amplitude allows farther range communication. If any of this is wrong please correct me.

My question is if I wanted to increase my wifi range could I simply increase the signal amplitudes on my router and device? Are there any other factors effecting the distance a signal can travel that can be easily manipulated? For example, I can't do anything about barriers such as walls and I can't make the receptors more sensitive to weak signals so those factors aren't useful to me.

Another way to increase signal strength is of course to have an intermediate device that picks up the original signal and the creates a new amplified signal. I would like to know about ways that avoid using any extra devices.

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  • $\begingroup$ First paragraph, all yes......2nd paragraph my wifi range could I simply increase the signal amplitudes on my router and device? how could you do that? Can you move the gear or get a splitter for the T1 cable , one side into the router, the other up to the main pc room you use., i I don't if these splitters are available though, or can you get a dongle for a tablet the cable can go into $\endgroup$
    – user108787
    Sep 25, 2016 at 0:37
  • $\begingroup$ Would Electrical Engineering be a better home for this question? $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic ♦
    Sep 25, 2016 at 6:53

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In theory you can increase the signal range with a stronger signal (effectively a larger amplitude) but in practice there are power limits for safety and to avoid interference with other equipment.

But the router would also need a more sensitive receiver to receive the weak signal back from the computer at a larger distance.

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You can get wifi repeaters or boosters (same thing). It'll receive the signal, amplify it and re-transmit to cover areas with weak or no coverage.

See for instance https://www.repeaterstore.com/pages/wifi-booster-repeater-extender-differences. Or Google wifi repeaters, plenty of offerings, from about $39 to $65 for basically doubling your coverage.

Notice that the repeater can not, legally, produce more power than the router, Botha are governed by the signal power limits for the wifi bands.

I have not tried them but know people who have. I think in the area where the coverage overlaps you could get some cross interference, or in essence multipath like effects from the vector sum of the two.

If you don't have the latest 802.11ac, or more recent, you should. The MIMO technology on those will increase the range. If you add in some illegal amplifier your neighbors will likely notice the interference, some wifi analyzers could notice it also.

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