Free City Provided Public Wi-Fi Setup
First Post:
I was thinking of upgrading my wireless card to a D-Link DWA-556. I know it works with Commview. I have a desktop and I live in an on the outskirts of the free public wifi radiospan as well as a mile away from a coffee shop area (a college town). There are a lot of open public wifi spots around me.
I want to strengthen my signal connection with them as well as increase the reliability. The DWA is a 802.11n as well as it has 3 rubber ducks on it.
Would it be prudent to get 2 directional yagi’s going in separate directions (one towards the coffee shop and the other toward the city) and 1 Omni directional to get the other directions not covered by the Yagi’s (each with a 8 to 12 DBi gain)? These would replace the rubber ducks.
Is there going to be any interference from having that much antenna (or gain)?
I want to make sure I don’t waste bunch of cash before I just go out and do it. I am a student so I am poor as well as I rely heavily on a stable internet connection for online classes. If I can get this stuff for Christmas then I can never have to pay the monopolistic bastards at charter another dime.
Thanks,
JOe K.
No, that wouldn't help to do that at all. Since the antennas were places on the unit to help with antenna diversity and were tuned as such. Doing what you propose could potentially confuse the antenna diversity circuitry inside the unit and not give you any kind of gain at all.Originally Posted by ClaudeWalker
If you want to add an external antenna, then you'd do it on one Antenna Jack only and turn off antenna diversity.
A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.
Since all the internet is the same, you only need to point an antenna at the AP where you get the greatest signal. Getting much of a signal at 1 mile seems like a stretch, unless you have gains in excess of 20dB (remember that the APs are only transmitting omnidirectionally about 20-25 dBm). A yagi would probably be your best bet and they are relatively cheap. However, you would have to mount it more or less permanently on a pole and take the time to properly aim it (narrow beamwidth).
As for the diversity circuit, you could disable it, but it would be just as good to ignore it. It will keep checking the rubber ducky antenna to see if it has a larger signal than the yagi - thus, it will never change.
What kind of antenna would you recommend for my scenario?
When I had my desktop with a wireless router I got a horrible signal from about 10ft away (through a wall). I think it is the set up of the building I am in. Hence I wanted to error on the side of too much power.
How about 3 omni-directional antennas? (I'm assuming that would have the same effect).
Or how about 3 un-amplified antennas or 1 amplified and 2 un-amplified, that would just have better placement instead of near the ground and next to a wall on the back of my desktop?
In your opinion what would be the best possible antenna set up?
Thanks, JOe K.
what city is that? just pure interest
thx
DELTA
"Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...LOVE!"
by, Homer J Simpson:cool:
Madison WI, USA.
Total College Town way liberal hence public wifi in it's infancy
Does anyone else have a high gain setup?
Thanks, JOe K.
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