HI gang, I have discovered that there are a couple of locations in my house where the wireless network does not work well at all. Naturally, they are the locations where I most want to use my laptop. My access point is on the 2nd floor in approx. the middle of that floor. I'm trying to use the laptop on the 1st floor at one end of the house to (almost) no avail. Moving the access point to other locations in the room seems to make little difference. My house is not a mansion - I'm well within the 300 ft alleged range. My 2.4 GHz wireless phones have no problem over this particular path through the house (and yes, I turned them off in case they were causing interference). I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org
I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked?
Well, I know of some people that have put two WAPs in their houses, at around the middle height in each half of the house. That would require shelling out another $150, of course, but they do get full reception anywhere in the house. Brian J. Conway bconway@alum.wpi.edu "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." - Albert Einstein
On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 11:04:14PM -0400, Andy Stewart wrote:
HI gang,
I have discovered that there are a couple of locations in my house where the wireless network does not work well at all. Naturally, they are the locations where I most want to use my laptop.
My access point is on the 2nd floor in approx. the middle of that floor. I'm trying to use the laptop on the 1st floor at one end of the house to (almost) no avail. Moving the access point to other locations in the room seems to make little difference. My house is not a mansion - I'm well within the 300 ft alleged range. My 2.4 GHz wireless phones have no problem over this particular path through the house (and yes, I turned them off in case they were causing interference).
I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked?
The catch with these add-on antannas is that they get you more effective power by limiting the direction in which they're broadcast. If you can find one corner of the house, you should be able to get away with an antenna that has just a 180 cone, instead of a full omnidirectional one, that will give you twice the effective signal strength. Also, if you access point has dual antennas, then you can leave one as the omnidirectional, and get a directional for the other antenna and point it at the problem spots. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 18 Full-time WPI Network Engineer, Part time Linux/Perl guy | Right now I'm having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -- Stephen Wright
Hey, how much are these things. I have access in my whole house, but when I go in my backyard it's really hit or miss. Wes On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 08:10, Frank Sweetser wrote:
On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 11:04:14PM -0400, Andy Stewart wrote:
HI gang,
I have discovered that there are a couple of locations in my house where the wireless network does not work well at all. Naturally, they are the locations where I most want to use my laptop.
My access point is on the 2nd floor in approx. the middle of that floor. I'm trying to use the laptop on the 1st floor at one end of the house to (almost) no avail. Moving the access point to other locations in the room seems to make little difference. My house is not a mansion - I'm well within the 300 ft alleged range. My 2.4 GHz wireless phones have no problem over this particular path through the house (and yes, I turned them off in case they were causing interference).
I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked?
The catch with these add-on antannas is that they get you more effective power by limiting the direction in which they're broadcast. If you can find one corner of the house, you should be able to get away with an antenna that has just a 180 cone, instead of a full omnidirectional one, that will give you twice the effective signal strength. Also, if you access point has dual antennas, then you can leave one as the omnidirectional, and get a directional for the other antenna and point it at the problem spots.
-- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 18 Full-time WPI Network Engineer, Part time Linux/Perl guy | Right now I'm having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -- Stephen Wright
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Andy, Passive antennas work best when there the signal is low. It usually won't do a whole heck of a lot if the signal isn't there to begin with. I've done a couple of installations where I've used multiple antennas located in different parts of the building. The Linksys systems use two antennas for diversity reception. I've taken one of them and attached it to coax and an antenna and placed it in the "problem" room. It will reduce the overall range somewhat (since you'll lose your diversity reception capabilities) but it will fill the area you want the signal in. If you want to you can also put another antenna in a second "problem" room. This would of course change the center of your coverage area but if the antennas used have high enough gain to overcome the coax loss then you may actually gain some range in certain directions. The whole key is to put the signal where you want it. You'll sometimes trade off your signal in one location to improve it in another. This isn't always a bad thing. - Rob On Thursday 08 August 2002 11:04 pm, Andy Stewart wrote:
HI gang,
I have discovered that there are a couple of locations in my house where the wireless network does not work well at all. Naturally, they are the locations where I most want to use my laptop.
My access point is on the 2nd floor in approx. the middle of that floor. I'm trying to use the laptop on the 1st floor at one end of the house to (almost) no avail. Moving the access point to other locations in the room seems to make little difference. My house is not a mansion - I'm well within the 300 ft alleged range. My 2.4 GHz wireless phones have no problem over this particular path through the house (and yes, I turned them off in case they were causing interference).
I have been looking at these add-on antennas that are available on the Internet. It appears that some are passive while others are active. Would this help, or is there some more basic solution which I've overlooked?
Thanks,
Andy
-- -= rb@millbury.net =-
participants (5)
-
Andy Stewart -
Brian J.Conway -
Frank Sweetser -
RB -
Wesley Allen