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Do high-gain wifi antennas really do anything?

I have had a high gain attenna that has worked, just realize that they are like 50 bucks sometimes and getting a better router or an additional WAP can be a better solution, if you have the ability to put the WAP at the other end of your house from you wireless router
 
Originally posted by: Kaido
For example, this antenna for a Buffalo wireless router from Buy.com:

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s...9366&Type=PE&Category=Comp&dcaid=17379

Do they actually improve range?
Click to expand...

While that specific antenna isn't going to give you much in the way of gains, a higher-gain model certainly will. $35 for a 4dBi antenna is borderline highway robbery.

I've had excellent luck with Hawking antennas, which tend to be cheap and powerful. There are lots of resources on the web for DIY antennas. Contrary to some of the information on EZLan.net, a stronger antenna on your router can make a significant improvement to the coverage of your wireless signal.

My personal favorite is this one from Hawking: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0213239

It's $30 for 6dBi. That's more than a two-fold improvement over a stock 2dBi ducktail that a typical router has. Now, a 100%+ signal improvement doesn't translate 1:1 to distance improvement, but I've used these to increase my effective coverage radius by, at BARE minimum, 40%, averaging around 60% or so.

Also, you can make cheap and simple parabolic reflectors for an antenna as a two-fold measure to decrease signal propagation in one direction and increase signal strength in another. An antenna with a parabolic dish made from aluminum flashing can expect a 6dBi increase over the antenna's unreflected power. Therefore, a 6dBi omni-directional antenna ($30) with a 6dBi reflector ($5 in materials) becomes a 12dBi Directional. It's not exceptionally pretty, but cheap rarely is. But it works.

I'm working on a tutorial for making one (the site that used to have one online, freeantennas.com, seems to no longer exist) out of aluminum flashing, which is a lot more effective than aluminum foil, but in the meantime, check out this site:

http://www.binarywolf.com/249/diy-parabolic-reflector.htm

This is only effective, of course, if your wifi access point is at the edge of your signal coverage area, allowing you to bask the rest of your area with the signal. For example, position it in the front room of your house, pointing to the back, so that the whole house plus the backyard gets wifi. You'll have spotty access on your porch with this method though. 😉

There's a lot of fun to be had playing around with different antenna designs, and you can make some wicked stuff depending on your level of craftsmanship. Just google for "diy wifi antennas" and you'll get started quickly. 🙂
 
All is nice and dandy. However when using this indoor most of the numbers are not necessarily valid because the range of the Wireless indoor is directed by the obstructions and elements that such the 2.4GHz signal.

These elements blocking properties do not necessarily follow your analog math, and thus the gains are a toss up depending on the environment.

Directional Antenna as oppose to Omni, do offer significant improvement.

However if you looking for wide coverage you would not use directional Antenna on the Wireless source, and fitting a Laptop with a directional Antenna might prove to be cumbersome.

If you have a remote stationary client and the signal is, too weak a good directional Antenna might be a solution.

On the other hand, when you can find a decent Wireless Router/AP that can do WDS for less then $50, why spend more then $30 on Omni directional Antenna.

BTW. The above relates to indoor, outdoor is a differnet story.
 
sure...

I have some high gain antenna's, and I have extended my network to 7+ miles (never have checked full range)
 
Actually, you'd do well to run something like NetStumbler and verify that you are getting the best signal QUALITY as possible, before trying to improve your signal STRENGTH.

You can have a signal strength of 100% and still have a crap, slow transmission rate. Signal quality is more important than strength.

Do an RF scan with NetStumbler (or Kismet, if you are Linuxly inclined) and verify that you are using the cleanest channel (stick with 1, 6, or 11 to minimize likely interference from other APs), then start worrying about the signal strength.

...and, BTW, if you are in a "noisy" area, a higher gain antenna will crank up the noise, right along with the desired signal ... same SQ, just more of it ... you will have wasted your money. In these cases, a better AP (better selectivity) is the only thing that will save you.

Think of it in terms of audio: If you are listening to a noisy AM radio station ... is it any more pleasent if you crank up the volume? (that would be "no" to the rhetorically challenged) ... unless you focus and make your hearing more selective will you hear the information through the noise.

Good Luck

Scott
 
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