High Gain WiFi antennas?!?!?

[Stereodude]

Anyone have any opinions or experience with high gain omnidirectional 2.4Ghz antennas like this or this?

When I first moved into my apartment 18 months ago there wasn't a single wireless network in range, now there are like 13. About 6 weeks ago my wireless network got really flaky. Both of my notebooks had problems where they will lose their connection to my network and not reconnect for minutes. I had to turn broadcasts back on to solve that problem. With the broadcasts turned back on the notebooks were a lot better, but my Roku Soundbridge M500 still had a real hard time getting a good wireless connection as my music playback frequently pauses. I tried connecting it via wired ethernet, and it worked perfectly, so I know the wireless connection is the problem.

Yesterday I changed the channel the router to 11, it had been on 1. 6 seems to be the most crowded. 11 and 1 are both pretty empty. I also turned the router's transmission power up with the Hyper-WRT firmware to 84mW. I turned broadcasts back off and so far it seems to be working ok, but I was thinking to get a pair of high gain antennas for my Linksys WRT54g to hopefully overpower/drown out some of the interference I'm getting from the neighbors.

And, no, going to 802.11a or another flavor of wireless isn't an option...

 

[P5-133XL]

You've probably solved your problem simply by changing the channel and thus shouldn't have to deal with antenna's till more difficulties show up. My history with such is that most people will not even go to the effort of diagnosing problems and then changing their channel from the factory defaults: They'll just live with it and bitch about the poor quality of their ISP. So you are relatively safe, by simply changing channels.

Hey, with so many networks to choose from, you can probably drop your ISP and use someone elses bandwidth for free: That way you can be part of the conjestion solution rather than being part of the problem. No comment on the ethics of stealing BW though.

 

[Stereodude]

Only 1 of the neighbors has their pants down... The rest are runing WEP or something else.

Unfortunately, changing the channel hasn't completely fixed the problem with my Roku M500. I physically moved it around some and I'll see if it works any better...

Otherwise I was looking at either these or these. They're both ~$25 shipped, not sure if the 2nd ones are really better at 9dBi or not.

 

[Stereodude]

Well, moving the Roku M500 around didn't aleviate the problem... I guess I'll be getting a pair of antennas...

 

[Mercutio]

I've set up those Hawking antennas several times. I think they work well enough to increase range.

My solution for crowded 2.4GHz is to go to 802.11a.
Failing that, you could get Pre-N equipment and blow away whomever is interfering with you.

 

[Stereodude]

I went with the two Linksys antennas from ebay for $25. I'll find out how well they work soon enough.

 

[sechs]

If you can, using channels higher than 11 solves a lot of crowding issues.

 

[Stereodude]

If you can, using channels higher than 11 solves a lot of crowding issues.

Aren't those channels illegal in the US? Besides, will my devices be able to see something on channels >11?

 

[sechs]

Illegal? Not that I'm aware of. The FCC won't allow you to sell equipment in the United States that uses those channels, but that doesn't stop you from using them.

I've never found a difference between the actual hardware sold here, in the United States, and that which is sold in Europe or Japan, where you can use these channels. It may take some convincing, but you should be able to do it.

 

[Clocker]

I have a high gain antenna...you can have if you want it. It's a female connector on the end...I'm using one on an SMC router and I could definitely tell a difference in signal strength. I think it is a 7dBi antenna, IIRC but it may be 5dBi. I bought two because the price I got on it was pretty cheap. Let me know if you want a pic, I'm bot sure the connectors are all the same.

See ya,
Kevin

 

[Clocker]

It looks just like this one (RP-SMA connector):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...name=STRK:MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=170053929169

http://www.ultimateshopusa.com/7antenna1.jpg

http://www.ultimateshopusa.com/antenna2.jpg

You can have it for free + whatever it costs me to ship to you (if you want it).

 

[Stereodude]

Thanks for the offer, but I already grabbed a pair of the Linksys 7dBi ones from ebay.

 

[Stereodude]

Well, I got my "new" 7dBi antennas today. I put them on the Linksys, and it definitely increased my signal strength (according to my PC's signal strength meter). I haven't had a chance to test my Roku M500 yet, but I'm optomistic.

 

[ddrueding]

I have a 24dBi D-Link one here, and it's letting me use the coffee shop's connection at least a quarter mile away. There are nearly two dozen "2wire" APs within range, all of them secured. I wish I could get one of them; they are much closer.

 

[ddrueding]

Nevermind, model is ANT24, but it's only 7dBi.