Tool
WiFi range & link planner
Put in the distance and what is in the way, and this will tell you which class of equipment can actually do the job — including when the answer is that nothing wireless will.
A typical farmyard is 200–600 ft.
At 400 ft in these conditions
Outdoor access point
An outdoor-rated access point, wired back to the main building, should cover this. Note "wired back" — feeding it wirelessly puts you back where you started.
| Equipment | Usable range here | Reaches 400 ft? |
|---|---|---|
| The router you already have | 90 ft | No |
| Mesh system or extender | 160 ft | No |
| Outdoor access point | 400 ft | Yes |
| Point-to-point wireless link | 8,000 ft | Yes |
These are conservative real-world figures for usable throughput, not the numbers printed on the box. Trees are the big variable and the seasonal one — a link aimed through bare branches in February can degrade badly once the canopy fills in, which is why a survey should assess for June rather than for the day someone happened to be standing there.
Common questions
Why is my extender not reaching the shop?
An extender repeats the signal it receives, which halves throughput, and it needs a solid signal where it sits to begin with. Across open ground it runs out of usable signal long before it runs out of distance. That is a different problem from the one an extender is designed to solve, which is a dead corner inside a house.
Does the calculator account for trees?
Yes, and it is the biggest single factor after distance. What it cannot know is the season. A link aimed through bare branches in February can degrade badly by June, which is why a real survey assesses for full leaf rather than for the day of the visit.
What if there is a building in the way?
Then no wireless option works reliably, and the tool will say so rather than suggest something. The honest answers are a relay point somewhere that can see both ends, or buried cable.