operator1

As a former radio hobbyist and a former WiFi ISP operator, I can tell you that the singal most important thing with WiFi is antenna location. The higher you can get the antenna the better your signal is. Depending on what you are looking for range wise you can experiemtn with different ideas.

At home, I use the Linksys WiFi G Cable Gateway. This device has a cable modem with a router and WiFi built in. I found that when I used this in place of my cable company's modem, my speed doubled. I simply have my router in the loft which is the topmost point in the house. It's close to the center of the room so as to provide the best coverage over the entire house. I have a two story house and so the loft would be the 2.5th story. I get a solid WiFi signal up to 300 paces from my house, which is more than adequate.

In higher end equpiment, you can run external antennas that are capable of focusing the signal as in site to site hook ups where you need a straight shot from one building to the next and distance is the key. that site mentioned above has some nice external antennas. I am not sure if you could fashion these onto home grade equpiment or not.

Things to watch for are cordless phones that are cheap and operate within the 2ghz bandwidth. If your neighbor's have a Wireless ISP, sometimes their AP's can cause issues with your equipment. Try changing the channels on your router. I have found that higher channels seem to operate a bit better in my area. Don't set the router next to anything which may cause EMI or magnetic interference. Some Brands of cable modems have been proven to cause speed and range issues when using WiFi. A collegue of mine told me he thinks this is related to a udp multicast problem, but I never cared enough to check. I just use my own equipment to avoid those issues.

These all sounds like rinky dink, lame fixes but in reality they can have a huge impact on WiFi. Also, higher encryption on your router will reduce the distance. I am not sure what the cause is but I have performed real world tests and the theory seems to hold.

Hope some of this helps.

Cheers

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Operator1
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Idwadi

Yeah... Make yourself a pringles can Antenna then point that bastard out the window. Problem Solved.
Just type Pringles can Wi-Fi antenna into google ... you'll find it

Spencer Was Here

Are you the same "Moody" from the welding boards?