Wireless antenna info

[moosey]

I have a D-Link dwl-g510 wireless adapter and want to improve the signal strength with an indoor antenna from d-link. I was wondering which would be best. According to D-link all their wireless antennas will work with my card. The router is down one level in the house and through a wall or two so I need to improve the signal through all that.

Would a 4,5,or 6dbi antenna work best? Here are some of the models
ANT24-0400
ANT24-0500
DWL-M60AT

Any other tips? Thanks

 

[JackMDS]

Antennae are not amplifiers. Antennae take the energy from the power amplifier of the Transmitter and propagates it into the air.

An Antenna can propagate better if the design is matching the impedance and wave length of the source, or and by making it unidirectional and thus concentrate most of the output power into one direction.

In general Antennae are rated in dbi the default antennae that I usually installed on entry level Wireless is 2dbi. 4dbi is better than 2dbi and 12dbi is better than 4dbi.

Getting a better designed omni directional Antenna (which is usually in the 4-8 dbi range) might improve somewhat indoor propagation, but it is usually minimal and results in a gain few feet.

If you do have a Wireless connection in a remote room, but it is unstable, or and on the border of Non-Functionality a better Omni directional Antenna might help.

Getting a Real Hi Gain Directional Antenna will work better, but it will restrict the Wireless availability to one specific direction, and thus much more suitable to outdoor bridging.

The best solution to extend indoor distance is to extend coverage by adding more transmitters. I.e. Access Point Repeaters, etc.


Link to: Extending the Distance of Entry Level Wireless Network.

Link to: Using a Wireless Cable/DSL Router as a Switch with an Access Point

Link to: Wirelessly Bridging Home / SOHO Network.


:sun:

 

[ktwebb]

Going from a standard 2 dBi antenna to an 8, even a 4 dB omni will yield better results than a few feet. Results will vary based on obstructions and/or interference but you double the power for every 3 dB you increase the gain. That doesnt mean you'll double your coverage but doubling the gain WILL improve your cell coverage, sometimes dramatically. The only thing you really need to worry about with going higher gain is that the radiation pattern does change. Look at it like this. 0 gain is a ball, signal propagation going in all directions equally. The higher the gain, the flatter the pattern. So the higher the gain on the antenna the more and more it looks like a donut. So if your client is directly under that donut then you may have a problem. You can get around that of course by altering the orientation of the antenna itself.

 

[Tarrant64]

I just bought a wireless extender for my d-link and let me tell you, it works great!!!

This is what I have: DWL-M60AT

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah upgrading to better Antenna in an envioroment that consists of Big Room, or Office cubical with partitions that do not reach the ceiling (especially when the Antenna is mounted on or close to the ceiling would improve greatly the Signal distance and quality.

However most Home owner place the Antenna on a table or a shelve on the side of the room (most time few inches from a wall). Typical envioroment is like the one describe in this post (the signal goes one level down and few walls). Under such circumstances, it is usually a waste of money to place a better "stick".

Besides really Good Antenna cost more then an additional Cable/DSL Router that can be used as an additional access point for such purpose.

In most cases if a Home user use a CAT5e cable and put an additional signal source out of the room in the central hallway the Wireless converge of the house improves dramatically.

:sun: