Extend wifi antenna range

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)

This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".

If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?

If the computers are in fixed locations, you're only
trying to reach one computer in a remote location,
that's when directional wizardry comes to the rescue.

I didn't even know they had such things for WiFi. Good to know. So I
guess the standard omnidirectional ones have limits in reaching some rooms
in some larger homes. (I'm in a small apt, so I wouldn't know!)

And if your house has metal door frames, metal 2x4 construction
instead of wood (metal 2x4s behind gypsum board), there can
be lots of reasons for a house to be completely attenuating
remote reception. But you'd probably have a hint of that,
if other kinds of radios do poorly.

*******

There was no radio reception (or TV for that matter) at
work, because of the framing used in the building. As well,
there were strong carrier frequencies due to equipment leakage.
While any individual box would meet FCC part 15, if you have
thousands of RF sources, sooner or later, that's a problem.
When I attempted to tune an FM radio at work, there
was a carrier so strong, the radio would go "quiet" at
exactly 100.0MHz (AGC reacting to input overload). And
that's a ton of "computer crystals" doing that.

I had to listen to "Internet Radio" to listen to music.

That sounds like a bit of a pain. And not as simple or convenient as just
spinning the dial on a regular radio to get a station! (assuming one still
has a radio with a dial for the tuner - I may be dating myself)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
[]
And if your house has metal door frames, metal 2x4 construction
instead of wood (metal 2x4s behind gypsum board), there can
be lots of reasons for a house to be completely attenuating
remote reception. But you'd probably have a hint of that,
if other kinds of radios do poorly.
[]
I don't think door frames, girders, etc. will make wifi unusable - I
think only continuous sheets (or mesh) would do that. They'll certainly
do strange things to the radiation patterns, reflections, and so on, but
I don't think they'll block it altogether - remember ordinary radio is
hundreds of metre wavelengths (AM) or about three (FM), whereas wifi is
125mm (2.4 GHz) or 80mm (5 GHz), which may well find a way round or
through such metalwork. As I mentioned in another post, my SatNav (which
is on a similar frequency, I think) works near to the floor of my car,
to my surprise.

I've read second-hand accounts of metal door frames playing
a part. I haven't seen a web page where someone used test
instruments to investigate the patterns involved.

As well as direct reception, there is also the phenomenon of
multipath, which adds a bit of unpredictability to the whole
thing. In fact, in one testing lab, a tester discovered that
when his RF attenuator "mat" was present in the lab, the
Wifi gear was working better. (That would attenuate forward
signal as well as multipath reflections.)

(Some mats...)
http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/Laird_4024.pdf

So maybe the metal door frame is "reflecting".

If you want the ultimate RF environment, they make anechoic
chambers for RF. One of my buddies at work designed such
a room (that was his job), and it's too bad I was too
busy for a visit to see the thing. I gather it was visually
quite impressive.

("Looks quite absorbent... Careful where you walk")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ra...ber-HDR-0a.jpg

Paul

Paul, did I misunderstand something here?
(Please let me know if I did - see below).

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)

This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".

If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?

By "directional in the Z axis", I presume you mean the radiation pattern.
So I must be missing something in terms of orientation. ???

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul, did I misunderstand something here?
(Please let me know if I did - see below).

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)
This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".
If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?

By "directional in the Z axis", I presume you mean the radiation pattern.
So I must be missing something in terms of orientation. ???



Use this one as an example.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antenn...tors/dish4.php

If you're all the way to the right, there is a huge signal.

But if sitting on the floor below, and just a little bit to the right
of the origin, there's a null. No signal.

Paul

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul, did I misunderstand something here?
(Please let me know if I did - see below).

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)
This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".
If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?

By "directional in the Z axis", I presume you mean the radiation pattern.
So I must be missing something in terms of orientation. ???



Use this one as an example.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antenn...tors/dish4.php

If you're all the way to the right, there is a huge signal.

But if sitting on the floor below, and just a little bit to the right
of the origin, there's a null. No signal.

Paul

OK, so if we're talking about a dish (parabolic) antenna pointed straight
up, the signal would be maximum right above it (in the rooms above), but
drastically fall off as you move away from that Z axis (due to the very
narrow beamwidth of such an antenna)

Are these even sold and used for WiFi?

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul, did I misunderstand something here?
(Please let me know if I did - see below).

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)
This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".
If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?
By "directional in the Z axis", I presume you mean the radiation pattern.
So I must be missing something in terms of orientation. ???


Use this one as an example.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antenn...tors/dish4.php

If you're all the way to the right, there is a huge signal.

But if sitting on the floor below, and just a little bit to the right
of the origin, there's a null. No signal.

Paul

OK, so if we're talking about a dish (parabolic) antenna pointed straight
up, the signal would be maximum right above it (in the rooms above), but
drastically fall off as you move away from that Z axis (due to the very
narrow beamwidth of such an antenna)

Are these even sold and used for WiFi?


Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.

Paul

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul, did I misunderstand something here?
(Please let me know if I did - see below).

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

(except directionality, of course)
This is the part that I want amateur antenna makers here to
realize. Is that frequently, you're changing a weak antenna
that works in all directions, into an antenna that "works like
a laser", and only allows one PC to be connected.

If you use nothing but directional antennas, and Wifi PCs
are all over the house, your coverage pattern will be
quite spotty, and there'll be "no roaming for you"
as you walk around the house with the laptop.

If you make the antenna more directional in the Z axis, so
the antenna works on the main floor of the house, and
not on any other floor, then you can't "roam upstairs".
If it's directional in the Z axis, isn't it directional in the up-down
direction?
By "directional in the Z axis", I presume you mean the radiation
pattern.
So I must be missing something in terms of orientation. ???


Use this one as an example.

http://www.antenna-theory.com/antenn...tors/dish4.php

If you're all the way to the right, there is a huge signal.

But if sitting on the floor below, and just a little bit to the right
of the origin, there's a null. No signal.

Paul

OK, so if we're talking about a dish (parabolic) antenna pointed straight
up, the signal would be maximum right above it (in the rooms above), but
drastically fall off as you move away from that Z axis (due to the very
narrow beamwidth of such an antenna)

Are these even sold and used for WiFi?


Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.

I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
I've read second-hand accounts of metal door frames playing
a part. I haven't seen a web page where someone used test
instruments to investigate the patterns involved.

I'm sure they do affect the pattern; I was just saying I don't think
they'd block the signals completely, just cause its direction to vary.

As well as direct reception, there is also the phenomenon of
multipath, which adds a bit of unpredictability to the whole

About 10 or 20 years ago I was involved with a project to overcome the
effects of multipath on long-range h. f. paths; quite fascinating. This
was low rate signalling - 2400 baud, IIRR - but we managed to overcome
multipath that was several symbols long, which doesn't seem possible
when you first look at it. ("Channel estimating" was the method;
"channel equalising" is the alternative method. Both have their
advantages and disadvantages.)

thing. In fact, in one testing lab, a tester discovered that
when his RF attenuator "mat" was present in the lab, the
Wifi gear was working better. (That would attenuate forward
signal as well as multipath reflections.)

I could see that - if you're in a high-multipath environment, cancelling
the multipaths - provided you're left with at least one signal of usable
strength - will almost certainly help.
[]
If you want the ultimate RF environment, they make anechoic
chambers for RF. One of my buddies at work designed such
a room (that was his job), and it's too bad I was too
busy for a visit to see the thing. I gather it was visually
quite impressive.

I used to work at what was then Marconi Research Centre (became BAE
SYSTEMS Advanced Technology Centre by the time I left), and they had
one, mainly I think for testing antennas. Since the RF-absorbent "cones"
also worked reasonably well as acoustic absorbers, it had the same "dead
air" feel as the sort of anechoic chamber they use for testing
loudspeakers.

("Looks quite absorbent... Careful where you walk")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ra...ber-HDR-0a.jpg

Paul

Actually, I think the Faraday centre where I work now has some such too.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, Vomit (I came, I saw, I was ill) - , 1998

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.

I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in their
advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a neighbour's (even
a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping with wireshark or
similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible for more of the
sales of such things than just people with very big properties! (Though
some such - perhaps farms and the like, with widely-separated [and maybe
part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I think
yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, Vomit (I came, I saw, I was ill) - , 1998

On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:45:10 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.

I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in their
advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a neighbour's (even
a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping with wireshark or
similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible for more of the
sales of such things than just people with very big properties! (Though
some such - perhaps farms and the like, with widely-separated [and maybe
part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I think
yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).

IMO, a good yagi is the best.
At my borthers "ranch", he has a neighbor who uses a yagi to get a signal
because they live way off the grid.

One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my littie
dongle.
I just toss the thing up on the dashboard for a good signal.
This particular night, I couldn't get a good enough signal to log on to
either of the two truckstops network.
But, there was a third signal and that one I logged on to.
That signal was coming from 25 mile up the road!
Albeit, it was a fluke due to the weather conditions.
Never got that luck again.

richard wrote:
On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:45:10 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.
I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in their
advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a neighbour's (even
a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping with wireshark or
similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible for more of the
sales of such things than just people with very big properties! (Though
some such - perhaps farms and the like, with widely-separated [and maybe
part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I think
yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).

IMO, a good yagi is the best.
At my borthers "ranch", he has a neighbor who uses a yagi to get a signal
because they live way off the grid.

One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my littie
dongle.
I just toss the thing up on the dashboard for a good signal.
This particular night, I couldn't get a good enough signal to log on to
either of the two truckstops network.
But, there was a third signal and that one I logged on to.
That signal was coming from 25 mile up the road!
Albeit, it was a fluke due to the weather conditions.
Never got that luck again.

There's a protocol timeout limit, that prevents Wifi
at an infinite distance. When the South American
university students do their mountain top experiments
with Wifi, going hundreds of kilometers, they modify some code
somewhere, to change that time constant. Without that
change, the Wifi chip won't wait for some response to
come back. Or, will assume the packet was lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

"In addition to power levels it is also important to
know how the 802.11 protocol acknowledge each received frame.
If the acknowledgement is not received, the frame is re-transmitted.

By default, the maximum distance between transmitter and receiver
is 1-mile (1.6 km).

On longer distances the delay will force retransmissions. On
standard firmware for some professional equipment such as the
Cisco Aironet 1200, this parameter can be tuned for optimal
throughput. OpenWrt, DD-WRT and all derivatives of it also
enable such tweaking."

So you can go to longer distances, but it would require
having tweaked that parameter, to make it happen.

Perhaps a repeater device of some sort, was present
in the neighborhood.

Paul

On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 16:57:48 -0500 "Paul" wrote in
article

richard wrote:
On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:45:10 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.
I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in their
advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a neighbour's (even
a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping with wireshark or
similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible for more of the
sales of such things than just people with very big properties! (Though
some such - perhaps farms and the like, with widely-separated [and maybe
part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I think
yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).

IMO, a good yagi is the best.
At my borthers "ranch", he has a neighbor who uses a yagi to get a signal
because they live way off the grid.

One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my littie
dongle.
I just toss the thing up on the dashboard for a good signal.
This particular night, I couldn't get a good enough signal to log on to
either of the two truckstops network.
But, there was a third signal and that one I logged on to.
That signal was coming from 25 mile up the road!
Albeit, it was a fluke due to the weather conditions.
Never got that luck again.

There's a protocol timeout limit, that prevents Wifi
at an infinite distance. When the South American
university students do their mountain top experiments
with Wifi, going hundreds of kilometers, they modify some code
somewhere, to change that time constant. Without that
change, the Wifi chip won't wait for some response to
come back. Or, will assume the packet was lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

"In addition to power levels it is also important to
know how the 802.11 protocol acknowledge each received frame.
If the acknowledgement is not received, the frame is re-transmitted.

By default, the maximum distance between transmitter and receiver
is 1-mile (1.6 km).

On longer distances the delay will force retransmissions. On
standard firmware for some professional equipment such as the
Cisco Aironet 1200, this parameter can be tuned for optimal
throughput. OpenWrt, DD-WRT and all derivatives of it also
enable such tweaking."

So you can go to longer distances, but it would require
having tweaked that parameter, to make it happen.

Perhaps a repeater device of some sort, was present
in the neighborhood.

Paul

A few years ago, Linksys opened up one of their routers to hacke...oops
experimenters. The 2.4GHz band is shared with an amateur radio
allocation, and hams began to modify the routers for all manner of
interesting uses. Hams are allowed to run much higher power than the puny
milliwatts the routers provide by default. And they did. High-gain
antennas and higher power allowed the routers to work over surprisingly
long distances. Some also modified the code to create automatic mesh
networks that were used for public service events like marathons.

Jason

On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 16:57:48 -0500, Paul wrote:

richard wrote:
On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:45:10 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Bill in
Co writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can web
surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.
I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst
Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in
their advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a
neighbour's (even a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping
with wireshark or similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible
for more of the sales of such things than just people with very big
properties! (Though some such - perhaps farms and the like, with
widely-separated [and maybe part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do
exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I
think yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the
beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).

IMO, a good yagi is the best.
At my borthers "ranch", he has a neighbor who uses a yagi to get a
signal because they live way off the grid.

One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my littie
dongle.
I just toss the thing up on the dashboard for a good signal.
This particular night, I couldn't get a good enough signal to log on to
either of the two truckstops network.
But, there was a third signal and that one I logged on to.
That signal was coming from 25 mile up the road!
Albeit, it was a fluke due to the weather conditions.
Never got that luck again.

There's a protocol timeout limit, that prevents Wifi at an infinite
distance. When the South American university students do their mountain
top experiments with Wifi, going hundreds of kilometers, they modify
some code somewhere, to change that time constant. Without that change,
the Wifi chip won't wait for some response to come back. Or, will assume
the packet was lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

"In addition to power levels it is also important to
know how the 802.11 protocol acknowledge each received frame.
If the acknowledgement is not received, the frame is
re-transmitted.

By default, the maximum distance between transmitter and receiver
is 1-mile (1.6 km).

On longer distances the delay will force retransmissions. On
standard firmware for some professional equipment such as the Cisco
Aironet 1200, this parameter can be tuned for optimal throughput.
OpenWrt, DD-WRT and all derivatives of it also enable such
tweaking."

So you can go to longer distances, but it would require having tweaked
that parameter, to make it happen.

Perhaps a repeater device of some sort, was present in the neighborhood.

Paul

If your not familiar with the routerboard/Mikrotik combination, you be
quite suprised at the capabilities of very inexpensive gear....

http://routerboard.com/RBSXT5nDr2

....retails for $59 or less, and are highly configurable for many
different types of applications, including long range.

On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 14:46:43 -0500, richard wrote:
One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my
littie dongle.


Shouldn't you be sending that story to Penthouse Forum?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

In article ,
says...

On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:45:10 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Yes. Using an image search engine, I can find 24dBi parabolic Wifi
antennas, with something like a 7 degree beam width. So you can
web surf in your barn :-) Many of them don't use a solid dish, and
instead use a "wire frame" reflector.

I guess that's what it's got to be for. :-)
Or beaming it over to a distant room in a mansion, like the Hearst Castle.
Must be nice. Amazing.


Or, though of course the manufacturers don't actually push this in their
advertising!, clandestine activities, such as using a neighbour's (even
a distant one!) unsecured wifi, or eavesdropping with wireshark or
similar. I rather suspect such uses are responsible for more of the
sales of such things than just people with very big properties! (Though
some such - perhaps farms and the like, with widely-separated [and maybe
part-metal] outbuildings - I'm sure do exist.)

Here are a few http://ebay.eu/1jsgCww - though the little ones only
claim 8 dBi, so aren't too much better than the larger "rubber duck"
type; at these frequencies and for somethng reasonable in size, I think
yagi aerials http://ebay.eu/1gLcJkp still win (most of those are
claiming 25 dBi). Of course, the higher the gain, the narrower the beam,
so they're probably harder to point. Some of the bigger dishes on the
first link probably have comparable or even higher gains (and are even
harder to point).

IMO, a good yagi is the best.
At my borthers "ranch", he has a neighbor who uses a yagi to get a signal
because they live way off the grid.

One time as a trucker, I had a nice little experience with my littie
dongle.
I just toss the thing up on the dashboard for a good signal.
This particular night, I couldn't get a good enough signal to log on to
either of the two truckstops network.
But, there was a third signal and that one I logged on to.
That signal was coming from 25 mile up the road!
Albeit, it was a fluke due to the weather conditions.
Never got that luck again.

I live in Nova Scotia, Canada and our provincial government sent out a
contract a few years ago in order to insure everyone in province got
decent speed. Most rural areas receive this thru a network of wireless
transmission towers with the house using a yaga style attena pointed at
the tower. Works fine for me but I'm less than 1Km away from tower but
otherwise very rural. Only other option is dialup (slow) or sat
(limitations and expensive).