Pic of my ALFA setup + Question/Problem

[frostbyt3]

Here's a pic of my new setup.

Antenna is the ALFA 9 dBi Omni Directional
WIFI card is the ALFA AWUS360h 1000mw

Overall I'm pretty happy with it considering how cheap everything was, and also compared to the TP-LINK, and Linksys USB dongles. I am not on the other hand too satisfied with the performance of the antenna. I only pick up one more A.P. with the antenna sitting on my deck then previously with the orginal "stock" antenna. The signal strength on my router slightly increases when I switch antennas, but that's about it.
I know this by running:

iwconfig wlan0 | grep "Link Quality"

My TX Power - 27 the highest with the default driver (RTL8187)

If anyone has any tips please post! Thanks.
http://i40.tinypic.com/33elxy8.jpg

[kukubau]

The stock 5dbi omni antenna Alfa AWUS360h is coming is much better than the 9 dbi, which imho is crap. Google it to convince yourself!

Also take in consideration the antenna is used indoors, so the walls are attenuating the signal. Put the Alfa with the stock 5 dbi or 2bi antenna (depends on which one you're Alfa came with), on the windowsill. You will see a lot of improvement. Large in this case (9 dbi) is not as better as the small. Also, the cable that the 9 dbi antenna has is loosing the wifi signal. As long is the cable, the greater the loss.

kukubau

[streaker69]

You should probably move your antenna away from the big metal reflector.

[frostbyt3]

I don't use it there often it's just sitting there for the picture.

[3l33t1]

Yes i agree with Streaker69. I tried bigger antennas with the alpha 500. The cable on that antenna has too much loss.
Best bet,use the stock antenna and a longer usb cable. n practice, the USB specification limits the length of a cable between full speed (12 Mbps) devices to 5 meters (a little under 16 feet 5 inches). For a low speed device (1.5 Mbps) the limit is 3 meters (9 feet 10 inches).
you can do 5 meters and then add a repeater and another usb cable and move the alpha unit away from the laptop(up in the attic,put i a sealed plastic container and mount outside etc). There are alot of hacks for usb dongles,follow the same for the alpha. The stock antenna is matched to the alpha. Happy modding!

[3l33t1]

You could also take the bulb out of tha tlight tie wrap your alpha and stock antenna to it and extend the light or direct it like a dish.
it is a nice lamp.lol

[Barry]

Dude, an 800X600 pixel photo would do. Oh, move the antenna. Looks like it might work better plugged in as well.

[gunrunr]

i have that antenna too, i don't use it too much the barely shielded wire has a lot of loss, and it looks kinda phallic. Still its much better at pulling in beacons then my netgear WPN511.
try to use kismet to compare the two antennas.
Personally where i live i pull in way more beacon frames with the big antenna than the little one or the one actually contained in the usb device itself. This laptop has a harddrive install of BT4 so i can use the regular cards, my other laptop is has the vmware image so i have to use the usb.
ps am i the only one here with a cantenna, and a biquad antenna from an old direct tv dish?

[frostbyt3]

gunrunr: I'd love to see your setup, or at least know what type of range your getting with it.

I tried ditching the cable, and screwing the antenna directly into the ALFA card which didn't provide much better results (if any). The USB cable that came with the WIFI card was much longer than the 6in one I'm using now...this wouldn't matter though since longer cable = loss?

And again, just for the record of course the cable gets plugged in...how else would it work, and it's only indoors next to the "big metal reflector" for the picture, like I said in my original post I move it outdoors on my deck when I actually plan an attack (on my own network(s) of course)