Antenna Gain

Im trying to get a wireless signal from my friends house that is in my neighborhood. I have a macbook and with just the wireless airport turned on it won't pick up any signal. Someone told me to get a high gain antenna and that would pick up the signal. How does a high gain antenna work and does it plug into a modem or right into the computer? Can It be in the house or do I have to mount it outside?

A high gain antenna would be external, and you'd have to open your laptop and connect it to the card. And you'd have to leave the wire hanging out if you didn't want to open it up each time.

If you really want to use your friends connection, you could try to get a wifi repeater, and using some high quality antennas.

2009-04-03 11:35:53 by kmac

This video explains a performance graph of a collinear antenna with respect to its physical length ........

I'm trying to add a wireless router to my 4 story town house. The DSL modem is in the basement in a telecommunications closet so unfortunately that's where the Router will go.

Does anyone know what kind of antenna I should look for when purchasing the router? What gain would be enough? I need the wireless to be working on the 4th floor. Or if you can recommend a Wireless Router, that would be great. Thanks.

P.S. Money is no object.

Check into a Linksys wireless repeater, which could be placed possibly on the second floor, boosting the signal. Of course it would have to be used in conjunction with a wireless router placed in basement. Total cost about $125 . I use a repeater in my ranch style house since my router is on one end of the house and my laptop on the other.

2007-03-19 15:22:45 by siddiqui247

Is it possible to put a high gain antenna onto my PCI receiver rather than the router?

Yes, absolutely. you have to make sure you get an antenna with the correct connector or be able to get the right adapter...you also need to be sure to select an antenna that is for your wireless draft "ie. G or N" Also to note that in some cases you might need to have high gain antennas on both devices for a solid connection.

2009-02-01 02:10:09 by K

Price: $72.00

Works with both Wireless-G and Wireless-B devices
Omni Directional design for 360 degrees of coverage
Stronger signal increases wireless coverage into hard-to-reach areas and improves throughput by reducing retransmissions
Increases the effective range of Linksys wireless devices
Easy installation -- simply replace your current antennas

I saw one online listed for $35. Theres several unsecured wireless users in my neighborhood but I get no signal once i connect. Dialup is awful & i dont see dsl working. Also the cable signal is awful too. So my only hope is to use as many wireless signals as possible.

This is extremely illegal (a) and the FCC in collaboration with the FBI have been cracking down on this.

In regards to signal gain, you won't realistically get much. A better antenna just provides less interference by the larger antenna. Just to note, each Db is a measure of noise. The 16db antenna will help reduce ambient radio interference (microwaves, portable phones, etc) but it won't necessarily increase your reception. The alternative is get a router that uses more wattage to transmit. 5 watts (about 100 yards) is the standard but signal repeaters and wireless access points with a more powerful transmitter will eliminate the need for a expensive antenna. 5 watts used to be the 'standard' but you can purchase more powerful ones now.

2008-03-10 08:55:45 by Willis C

In other words, I've got a Hawking hi gain antenna with which I'm grabbing some of my neighbor's signal(ats-a OK....she knows about it)....I'd like to network the rest of the computers in house with a netgear 16 port ethernet hub(en116). Currently running win2000 pro on two windows machines, xp pro on a laptop, and os x on a couple of imacs. I can upgrade, if that's accurate, to xp on the windows machines, if need be.

You can do this, but expect the internet connection on the other computers to be slow.

You main computer will always have to be on. On the main computer you will want to turn on Internet Connection Sharing. Connect it to the hub. Connect the other computers to the hub, configure all there ip and subnet addresses and configure the internet connection as sharing through another computer.

Now if you are serious and want a more stable connection and a easier setup then do this.

1) Purchase a cheap wired router to use with your 16 port hub
2) Purchase a wireless bridge

Connect the bridge to the router, connect the router to the hub and connect the hub to all the computers.

Configure the bridge to connect to your neighbors internet connection and the router will automatically assign IP naddresses to all the computers and share the internet connection with them all also.

2007-07-07 08:01:03 by piotavitz