[SOLVED] Why isnt existing TV antennas used as part of extending wifi *among others*

[ghostwolf1959]

Recently hit me... u can buy longer wifi antennas, extenders etc etc to allow wifi signals to reach longer - but never heard anyone thinking along the lines of using existing roof based tv antennas to do this - no real idea, but wonder why a wifi signal cant be traveling along existing tv cable back to an extender *or even re-wire it somehow

problem or??? Antennas is used to listen to signals, so not sure why tv antennas have been dropped off the discussion

 

[sizzling]

Recently hit me... u can buy longer wifi antennas, extenders etc etc to allow wifi signals to reach longer - but never heard anyone thinking along the lines of using existing roof based tv antennas to do this - no real idea, but wonder why a wifi signal cant be traveling along existing tv cable back to an extender *or even re-wire it somehow

problem or??? Antennas is used to listen to signals, so not sure why tv antennas have been dropped off the discussion

Antenna length is tuned for specific wavelengths. The frequencies and wavelengths used are very different and therefore require very different antennas.

 

[kanewolf]

Coax CAN be used to transmit ethernet. There is MoCA and there are proprietary point-to-point adapters. As @sizzling said, antennas are designed for specific wave lengths. The highest frequency that TV antennas are designed for is less than 900Mhz. But WIFI starts at 2.4Ghz. The antenna wouldn't pickup much signal. Even the coax used for TV is not rated for 2.4Ghz.
So there are lots of technical reasons that TV infrastructure hasn't been used for WIFI.

 

[Math Geek]

as others have noted, the antenna is designed for specific frequency ranges. this is why tv antennas don't pick up FM radio or cell signals or ham radio which are all also radio signals.

your cellphone antenna does not pick up tv signals either for the same reason. the radio frequency spectrum is divided up into many different uses designed to keep interference at a minimum. so unless you know how to engineer an antenna, i doubt you would be able to re-engineer one for use with other frequency bands than it was designed for.

i can say it is possible though if you have the know how. my last deployment had a really knowledgeable communication engineer with us. he managed to take one of the SINCGAR antennas and radio and hooked it up to a wifi router and provided a wifi signal to our outposts that were over a mile away with clear line of sight. no internet signal but we had a nice file server running off it for movie/music distribution. was a good week of work for him to somehow get the radio itself to transmit and receive the wifi signal (was long ago so was 2.4 ghz signal 802.11b if i recall right) and then another month of tweaking here and there to get it working decently. don't know what he did to the antenna but he had that thing up and down many times doing something to it along with the radio torn apart.

so is it possible? possible, strong maybe. worth the effort when you can just go buy what you need for the right purpose? not really.

also note, that strength issues are not the antennas fault either. the FCC limits signal strength for consumer products. so even the best router out there is still limited just as much as the cheap one next to it. none are designed to send a signal more than a couple hundred feet under the best of conditions.

 

[jsmithepa]

Recently hit me... u can buy longer wifi antennas, extenders etc etc to allow wifi signals to reach longer - but never heard anyone thinking along the lines of using existing roof based tv antennas to do this.

Are you coming from the perspective of a rural dweller? Because these things, designed by city dwellers, don't want your WIFI signal to be TOO strong to interfere with your neighbors.

I see close to 30 WIFI routers in my apartment complex, if I, my neighbors make my, their WIFI stronger, we may have a problem with each other.

And sending tcp/ip through coax, although not efficient but do-able as already explained by others. The antenna mast will have to be swapped by a different type.