Increasing the WiFi range

Hi,

Courtesy my short-term memory , I have forgotten the site where I read an article that the standard WiFi 802.11a/b/g or whatever has a limited range and how the range can be drastically increased with the use of either some special booster or some extra gadget or maybe compliance with 802.11 n thing???

Can someone help me here please. I hope the experts know what I am talking about

Thanks.

 

The best way to boost an AP (wireless) range is to upgrade to high gain antennas. Most all wireless routers come with 2 dbi antennas, saves them money. But stand along AP normally come with high gain, but more expensive than a wireless router but better.

Adding repeaters work but through put is low.

 

Thanks.

Can you kindly sharesome URL's from where I can get an idea about these AP's with high gain antennas.

Regards.

 

Hi there,

Here is a AP that I have very good personal experience with. It can be used as a AP or Repeater. You can also change the antenna to a high gain RP-TNC one for even better gain. I have always used mine as a repeater in my wireless network and it works very nice.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the reply choopz

Regards.

 

Glad to be of any help.

 

Hi choopz,
One more question:

I understand that most of the laptops offering the WiFi feature have the standard the standard Intel Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g adapter. Right?

If I want to go with Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card (which offers much wider range as per my understanding) then would it be something that would be internal to the laptop or would it be in the form of a PCMCIA (Type I/II) card? I hope my question is making any sense

Also I am assuming that the wireless-N card is backward compatible with
Access Points which offer only 3945 802.11a/b/g compatability?

 

Have you tried this yet?...go into device manager > Intel wireless 3945ABG > properties > advanced tab > power management (set to high). And in the same advanced tab there is transmit power (set that to high also). I found it boosted my signal quite well. Dunno if thats what you need but I found my wireless was a lot better after those changes
-Dan

 

Thanks Dan. I'll give it a try. Appreciate your reply.

 

Best way, in my opinion, to boost reception/signal is to use MIMO or Pre-N equipment. These will both offer considerable performance gains.

 

You can get replacement antennas for most wireless AP's which really improve reception. I know that Linksys does for sure, as I have some Check www.newegg.com. I'll get good service from the top floor down to the basement throughout my house now with the good antennas, didn't even have to boost the transmit power of the AP.

 

Hi Morland,

If what you are looking for is only a extra boost of coverage than Pita is wright.
I installed a couple of these antennas for a friend of mine on his Linksys WRT54G and they really gave him quite a boost. And it will be way cheaper than installing a repeater.
In my case I had to because of the really large area that had to be covered.

Hope it helps.

 

I believe a hollowed out, Pringles can works too, if you take off the bottom, and do a bit of modifying...

Thats what I heard from someone :/

 

The best, and cheapest way to boost your Wi-fi's range and look like a geek is to make your own Wireless dish. It's quite easy to do...

Just for the heck of it, I made a dish using a Chinese frying pan. It dramatically increased the amount of wireless signals I could pick up. With out the extra dish, I could pick up just 3 signals. With the dish, sometimes I was able to get over 30 signals. Not only did I pick up more signals, but the ones that I could detect before, were stronger signals.

Check out this cool site, this is what I got the idea from:

http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

 

Yeah, so it seems, makeshift materials that are rather shiny works well...as long as it somewhat resembles a collecting dish.

Though you would have to know how to modify it correctly in order for it to work.

However, if you drive around Manhattan, its normal to see random people with wierd cans sticking out their window trying to pick up some free wireless...