Can someone tell me a good Wifi sigial booster?

jjager85

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Sep 16, 2005
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im needing a wifi signial booster for my linksys, does anyone have any good ideas? ive seen one that you can just take the antenna off the back put this other one on and plug the antenna up to power and it will boost the signal.
 
Go to hyperlinktech.com, get a 10.5dBi omni for 2.4GHz, RPTNC to NMale pigtail with length of your choosing (short as will work for you). Somewhere around $75.

Ugly, but very effective.

Another option, get the Linksys 7dBi antennas, about $40, but from what I've been told, they're not all they're cracked up to be. I've used them in the past with success, but it wasn't as much gain as advertised.
 
I forgot about them in my first post, but hyperlinktech.com has regular rubber ducky antennas up to 9dBi, just screws right onto the router, somewhere in the $20 range.

You don't need an amplifier for this. You need a better antenna. Amplifiers increase noise, increase power output, decrease signal quality and speed when close and don't generally improve your receive capability. The antenna will not cause or pick up much noise, will increase signal close and far, and help on receive and transmit.
 
Antennas don't ever give you more transmit power - they simply modify its broadcast patterns... you have to understand this b/c you'll be taking away signal from somewhere to increase it in another direction.

http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/Antenna/Omni/index.html
Look at the blue and orange diagram (side view)... the blue is a signal with no antenna - theoreticaly produces a perfect sphere of coverage.. The rubber duck antenna that came with your router is an omni-directinal antenna probably between 3-5db in gain. Its pattern would sort of look like the orange in the diagram... although the top and bottom would look more like a donut than this. The representation here is probably more what a 10-15DB omni antenna would cause.

I bring this up because IF you put on another antenna, you'll lose coverage up and down from your router.. the antenna will refocus that signal outwardly... if you have more than one level in your house, a high gain omni antenna would be a bad idea.

If your router is near an end of your house + you don't need access outside on that side of the house, you could try http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html - this would boost signal in one outward direction without disturbing signals on other floors. Even if you have only one floor - this may wind up being a cheaper option for you.
 
I was looking into something like this:

http://sharperconcepts.zoovy.com/product/YSC-RE11DP-RTP

It's cheap, it'll plug right into the router and it's an 11dB gain. I'm just not sure how the technology behind it works.

I found a signal pattern on the flat patch panel similar to what you have. http://www.benchbee.co.kr/hardware/BenchLecture/read.asp?serial=5&page=4&sub_page=2 - near the bottom - check out the diffrence between the 8db gain and the 14db gain antennas... the one you are looking at is 11db, so it would be in the middle... in general flat panel wifi antennas use what antenna people would call a biquad or a bowtie antenna inside.
 
Yep, high gain omni antennas tend to flatten your signal out, but still have similar if not better gain than the stock 2dBi rubber duck antennas, even in the weaker areas. Not many consumer grade wireless devices have more than 2dBi. Huge difference between 2dBi and 3dB.

If you need signal above or below, you could always lay the omni sideways, or get a panel pointed up or down. Sidelobes on the panel are good for almost the same range as the 2dBi antennas.
 
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/rubber_duck_antenna.php

For Linksys/Cisco/some comercial grade stuff, you'll need the RPTNC antenna, for just about everything else, you'll need RPSMA.

The lower the gain, the more round the signal is, the higher the gain, the more range you get to the sides, but less above and below. That being said, as I mentioned above, you still are generally no worse off above or below at reasonably close range, within 25-50ft.
 

This device looks like it is an amplifier and an antenna in one. You are only allowed to tranmit at a certain power, which is pretty low. This would probably boost you to the point of being right at that limit, or even possibly over it. I'd be careful with this... if you have any HAM radio guys near you + you affect their ability to communicate, you'll probably be reported.

I'd advise you to stick with passive antennas (no amplifier)
 
I found a signal pattern on the flat patch panel similar to what you have. http://www.benchbee.co.kr/hardware/BenchLecture/read.asp?serial=5&page=4&sub_page=2 - near the bottom - check out the diffrence between the 8db gain and the 14db gain antennas... the one you are looking at is 11db, so it would be in the middle... in general flat panel wifi antennas use what antenna people would call a biquad or a bowtie antenna inside.

Ahhh, that's cool. So if I wanted to cover a whole house this would not work at all.

What is the best choice for covering multiple floors (each floor being about 600 sq/ft)? Multiple antennas? (ie - 1 per floor)? If that's the case, just run coax to each one with a splitter at the router?
 
One easy method, get a WRT54GL or Buffalo WHR G54S, flash to DD-WRT, set up as WDS repeaters, one for each floor.

It is much cheaper than the antennas and coax for this type of situation. You will cut your bandwidth in half every repeat. AP1 will have full 54Mb bandwidth, AP2 repeating AP1 will have half, AP3 repeating AP2 will have quarter.

If you're primarily sharing internet, under 10Mb, you'll likely never know the difference.
 
Ahhh, that's cool. So if I wanted to cover a whole house this would not work at all.

What is the best choice for covering multiple floors (each floor being about 600 sq/ft)? Multiple antennas? (ie - 1 per floor)? If that's the case, just run coax to each one with a splitter at the router?

if your router has two antennas, one is likely set up to recieve and the other to transmit. Your best bet for multiple floors is probably
A - the windsurfer antenna - only works if router is near the end of the house somewhere.
B - Buy a 2nd router + do WDS which basically connects the two routers wirelessly - the problem here is you're speed will be decreased by 1/2.. so if you're concerned about file transfer speeds between computers, don't do this... If you're only concerned about internet access - then this won't be a problem.
C - If you're willing to run a cat5 cable, you can also buy a router or an access point + connect it to your main router (connect both to the LAN side - router #2 should have nothing in the WAN side). You'll also need to turn off the DHCP server on router #2, or you'll get some weird issues.
 
Just for clarity, most AP's with 2 antennas use diversity, it picks the antenna with the best signal automatically.

I have set up one antenna outdoors, the other antenna indoors and tested a bridge between two houses. The way the router chooses the antenna isn't efficient enough, and the actual change between antennas takes a tenth of a second or something. The new stuff, Pre-N, uses MIMO, multiple radios, entirely different can of worms.
 
well at least im not the only one interested in boosting my signal, one thing i could do, stop being a cheap ass and spend some money and install the router in the middle of the basement, but then ill have to install a power plug in, run wires for it, add to the coax cable, move box for telephone and i should have a much better signal and i could still get a bigger rubber duck like you said a 9 dbi, we never set the wirless labtop in the middle of the house so that would work.

i still dont understand why a persons wifi access should be a secured network..... what can happen if i leave it open besides someone else using the internet....????
 
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