Any way to wirelessly hook a 6700 into a wireless LAN without a RJ45 connection?

w6gj

Moved from ATT DSL with the distance from the ATT hardware to my wireless router about 3 feet. Hooked up the 6700 R J45 to the my wireless router again about 3 feet. Everything worked as advertised. Enter Verizon as my service provider with their hardware hung in an upstairs window 20 or 30 feet away. The Verizon wireless hardware has an RJ45 on it which I figure is a network connection. It would be VERY convenient to have a wireless bridge from the RJ45 on the 6700 to the the Verizon network hence losing the copper wire cable. No idea if such devices exist so the radio could wirelessly connect to the new network like any other laptop or wireless device. Any thoughts on such a device?

Hopefully the later designs will lose the RJ45 requirement and go to a totally wireless interface if desired.
Thanks W6gj

KD0RC

WiFi is a double-edged sword... On one hand it allows connections that might not be practical otherwise. On the other hand, they are prone to latency and dropouts caused by other network use (in your house and from neighbors).

Streaming audio and video are not much impacted because they are heavily buffered so Netflix et al work well in this scenario. The real-time audio and video used by the Flex radios does not tolerate the latency and dropouts very well. Heavy buffering is not a solution - you would not want a 2 or more second delay in mic and speaker audio...

If at all possible, I would find a way to get hard-wired to the router and/or switch. The overall performance will be greatly enhanced.

Another choice is to directly plug your computer into the Flex. The downside is that you would not have Internet connectivity for spots, QRZ.com, etc. The upside is no additional network latency.

Gary NC3Z

Why not just use an Access Point that supports a Client mode if you must use WiFi? This tech has been around for a good long time.

John KB4DU

Or, if the ac outlets are in the right place, power wiring adapters, one at each end. They have the rj45 jacks that are needed. I use a pair of tp-link to get internet from the utility room to the shack at the other end of the house.

Ha Gei

Don´t even think about power wiring adapters..miserable RFI producing stuff !!

A simple Accesspoint , 15$ or the like, set up as a client to your WIFI is the only way to go , as already stated by Gary

Mike VE3CKO

or a wifi extender, they have a single ethernet port, this can connect to the 6xxx. or this whole-home mesh D-Link DIR LX-1870 is available at Costco.

Mike-VA3MW

As Len said:

You can make it work, but it is possible you won't like the performance. WiFi is very 'bursty' and this will affect streaming data. You will hear it as clicks on the audio stream.

73

John KB4DU

Well, I guess my experience with the tp-link adapters differs. The noise level is the same with or without them plugged in.

Mike-VA3MW

@John KB4DU

That is good to hear. Yours would be the exception to all our field testing. Glad it worked well for you.

73

John Mikucki

If your house is of an age to have unused cableTV jacks, you may be able to use MOCA bridges to build a point-to-point link over the nice, shielded coax that's already run through your house. Cost you 100-200 bucks, maybe, for a pair. If you look near your CATV entrance, you'll generally find a big splitter. Trace which splitter output goes to which room/jack. Unplug the end being fed from the splitter, hang a MOCA bridge on either end, and bam, you've got a 1gbps (or better) ethernet link. Plug one end into the radio, other into your VZ router, you're cookin' with gas. Have a couple bad ASCII-art diagrams:

You start with the all-cable-TV setup:

        |>to_room_1_wall_jack

CATV IN |>to_room_2_wall_jack

        |>to_room_3_wall_jack

        |>to_room_VZ_wall_jack

and what you want to end up with is:

        |>to_room_1_wall_jack

CATV IN |>to_room_2_wall_jack

        |>to_room_3_wall_jack

        |>XXTERMINATORXX       Radio <- ethernet -> MOCA bridge1 <-to_room_4_wall_jack

and upstairs in room4,

                              room_4_wall_jack-> MOCA bridge2 <-ethernet->VZ router

then your flex will sit on your home network and you will experience much greater joy.

Failing that, and footstomping @KD0RC 's solution, I'd like to suggest another possibility: subnetting.

Please excuse my ASCII-art diagram...

Flex eth0<--CAT5--> PC_eth0   [PC] PC_wlan1 <--802.11--> Wifi Access point/router/...

So you put two network adapters in the PC -- one wired, one wireless. Put the PC next to your Flex, connect directly with cable.

Configure the PC's wifi card to talk to your wifi network like normal, some 192.168 address. PC can see the internet, browse, run remote desktop/VNC/whatever. All* the the traffic going to it goes over the wifi network.

I put the * there because all the traffic between the radio and the PC will happen over the wired ethernet link. There's no DHCP server on that link, so the two should autonegotiate an IP address (APIPA, forget what it stands for). That network has no routes, won't carry any 'internet' traffic; it's just a point-to-point link between the radio and the PC. Now you can sit at the PC and operate the radio (huzzah), you can remote into the PC from your laptop and operate remotely (huzzah!). You can only connect to the radio through the PC, of course, so no Smartlink, iphone, maestro, yada yada. But it's an option.