Outdoor TV reception

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newpoolbuild

newpoolbuild

Silver Supporter
Sep 23, 2019
153
NY
I wanted to thank everyone for all the help along the way. Our pool retaining wall is done and the PB is waiting for inspection to pour concrete floor. I have learned so much from this forum.

I would really like to have a TV on the outside wall of the covered porch of the Change/ storage room. How do everyone hook up the reception? We watch YouTube and DVD most of the time via house WiFi or chrome cast. My husband watches football. The shed is at least 50’ away from the house. How do I get reception to the shed?
 
It might work in the open as is from the house. Try it. Otherwise, an outdoor additional hotspot ("extender") is a good way to do it if it is line of sight and the extender itself sees enough signal.

Worst case, dig a trench, and drop a piece of multimode fiber in it. Look for TP-Link media converters, put one on each end. Put in a second access point at the shed, it should be configured in access point mode rather than as a second router.

You can also try one of those powerline Ethernet converters and an access point at the shed, but bear in mind that you might have significantly less throughput but enough to stream video if you do that.

Those are the ways you can do it, but you might need to experiment. The fiber in a conduit is the most reliable way. I used to live on a 35.63 acre farm and that was the only 100% method for me between buildings. Burying cat 5/6 was a disaster. If you want to try that, go ahead but spend the extra $25 at the time to drop the pair of fiber too.

Good luck. A TV antenna and tuner outside can also supplement for football games, especially.
 
Can you get wifi from your phone in the shed?

Many TV providers (U-verse, DirectTV, etc.) offer wireless receivers which is what many people use for their outdoor TVs. Do you have a traditional TV provider for your service inside, and is a wireless receiver an option?
 
Thank you @Rattus Suffocatus and @JJ_Tex , neither of us are tech savvy. Our WiFi is not that great even w extenders on the yard end room. When I am on the back deck patio area, I do not get WiFi signals on my phone. The shed would be 50’ away from the yard side of the house. I will ask how much it would cost to burry fiber optic cable lines when they are burry electric lines to the shed. Electrician is coming tomorrow. TV cable lines are different from internet cable lines?
 
Yeah, you can maybe also run RG-6 for your cable TV as well. It sounded like from the first post that you were primarily interested in casting from a device at the house--- that needs internet. Wired networking is always better. If you already are going to have an open trench then it's a no brainer. I suggest fiber because it doesn't get ruined by water intrusion no matter what. Cat 6, even "direct burial flooded" like I tried last time in the Midwest did not survive even one winter. It might work here in Arizona, but New York is pretty wet as well. Converters on both ends will run about $150 and be full speed Gigabit connections. For a second cable box out there, a direct burial RG-6 should be okay. I have not had many of those runs ever fail on me.

I recommend putting communications cable of any sort, even marked direct burial, into PVC or metallic conduit so the critters don't make a snack out of it. Including the fiber.
 
If you are going to trench then put a PVC pipe in it and run low voltage cables like Cat-6 through it. Put one or two pull lines so you can pull new cable through it in the future.
 
Get a mesh network system. One that works with a separate backhaul channel. Orbi has outdoor satellites, I am sure others do as well. 50’ of outdoor unblocked space is easy to cover.
 
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Running fiber would probably be best but if you don't want to bury anything buy two Ubiquiti Nanobeams for less than $100 each and call it done. My entire home network is Ubiquiti stuff and it works awesome. I have 5 of their wireless access points spread across my house and two separate outbuildings. They make wireless solutions that can beam signals reliably for miles. My wireless link to shop is about 125' and I have a gigabit connection from the shop to the house over the wireless bridge.
 
Chungus said:
Running fiber would probably be best but if you don't want to bury anything buy two Ubiquiti Nanobeams for less than $100 each and call it done. My entire home network is Ubiquiti stuff and it works awesome. I have 5 of their wireless access points spread across my house and two separate outbuildings. They make wireless solutions that can beam signals reliably for miles. My wireless link to shop is about 125' and I have a gigabit connection from the shop to the house over the wireless bridge.
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I also have Ubiquiti running my network with 2 hard wired access points. I second this as good stuff.
 
Katodude has the easiest solution. I've been in IT for 40 years. Please don't use an extender, use a mesh system like the Orbi. Normal extenders don't have the range AND they reduce your overall internet speed by 50%. An extender needs to have a backhaul channel to send data back, and it does this by splitting the bandwidth up into two paths - effectively dropping speed by 1/2. It also will impact speed for all other devices.

A mesh system incorporates a separate radio for the backhaul, leaving you with your full original internet speed. I have an Orbi - they work great! About $200.
 
Why r we still talking about mesh networks and extenders when it’s a new build and a 10 dollar cat6 can be run And a plain old access point can just be installed.

Just give it a name and access on devices and go. When u get near it the device will log on. If u have anything else thst needs hardwired ethernet u through a 20 dollar switch out there and go nuts.
 
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You are right, that will work. But it may take a lot of work to get it in place, depending on the house build. For example, I have a home with poured concrete walls. This makes it a major pain to run a cat6 from the home to the outside location. In addition, it needs to be in an exterior conduit, or be rated for burial. No way it will be $10, if done properly. If you just want to bury a normal cable, and have easy access at both ends, then yes that would work great.

The mesh system cost a few $$, but only requires power at each end.
 
I was talking material. Don’t they have to drill through ur foundation anyway for ur electrical for the pool service?

I have a 12 inch thick poured foundation. I drilled my 3, 5 inch holes for 4 inch conduits while my buddy did the other 1 and a 8 inch for a waste line forc th e bathroom. Ya took use about 5 hours cause of hitting rebar vit was typical work. Conduit was all run then in 1 day cause we had to run conduit for electrical anyway. The low voltage would just be in another conduit.

It’s just good to spend the money on an extra conduit run anyway for the future.

I used 1 for electrical. 2 for low volt. 1 for water and 1 for waste. The other low volt with a few wires is for future if need be. I didn’t use any direct burial cause of conduit. Outdoor conduit isn’t expensive either in the sceam of it all either.

My build has pics of that day and how we ran everything.
 
I have an Amazon Fire TV Recast; once you hook it up, you just need a Fire TV stick in the HDMI port of any TV and you can get everything (I installed an antenna in my attic so I also get over-the-air channels). No cabling of any sort needed, and it was an easy setup for a non-tech person like me.

I "cut the cord" last year and it has been a wonderful experience. I subscribe to Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu. My $200 cable bill went down to a $20 internet bill (BTW, I subscribed to those services while I had cable).
 
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There are dozens of solutions. It will boil down to your expense to inconvenience ratio. :) You can spend less and run a cable - I would use conduit even with direct burial, I used to run a thin synthetic line to leave in for running a 2nd or replacement cable - plus whatever you need to get it in to the building and mounted. Depending on your providers throughput, I wouldn't spend the time or money on fiber, unless you're getting gigabit speeds from your provider. Even then, if all you want is TV out there, you won't need those speeds for one device.

Or, spend some money and plug and play. When we bought our current house I ran about 2000 feet of cable from my every room to my racks/servers. This was back when wifi was not ubiquitous and slowwww. Now, I don't use most of the drops. I installed an Orbi system and I only cable a couple of my systems that I move large files to my servers. Everything else is Wifi, including outdoors. It covers an acre, inside and out. Is there anything that would "block" wifi signal between you and the "shed"?
 
Just an FYI - I have gigabit internet speed. When connected via hardline, I see download speeds of 876 mbps. when connected via wireless on my Orbi I see download speeds of 795 mbps. Very little drop off. My previous internet speed was 200 MB, and I saw the same speeds on both hardline and wifi.

This is assuming you have a device with the latest wifi standard on it capable of supporting those speeds.
 
Another thing I like about the Orbi is there are wired connections on the router and satellites, in the even you need them. We have an old xbox 360 with no wifi -- plugs in the satellite.

Another issue with fiber is you will need to convert light to electrons or weefee. Either way, the costs add up.
 

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