Peabody <waybackNO784SPAM44@yahoo.com> hath wroth:

>I'm going to need to communicate over a fairly short distance - a
>mximum of 50 feet as the crow flies, but the signal will have to go
>through a total of seven walls to get to the back porch.

Are your rooms really 6.25 ft wide?

>The house
>was built in 1972, so I assume it's just standard 2x4 studs and
>wallboard.

Well, it appears you're in Tusla Oklahoma. I dunno what they use for
building materials in tornado alley. If I believe the tornado movies,
the houses are made from kindling and cardboard. If I believe the
tornado safety web sites, the houses are made of prestressed concrete
tilt up walls. Since you want to go outside to the back porch, some
clue as to the exterior construction would be nice.

>I'm looking at a Toshiba E35-S2171 laptop which contains an Atheros
>card, and either the regular or HP Buffalo router.

I think you mean L35-S2171, maybe.

>Will either of
>the Buffalo routers work in that situation? If they both are likely
>to work, I'd just as soon get the regular router and save a few
>bucks, if that sounds reasonable.

Probably not. You may not have foil backed insulation inside the
interior walls, but you probably have it on the outside walls. If you
have lots of windows, there's some hope. However, my rule of thumb is
that anything over about 2-3 walls is a lost cause. What will happen
is that you will probably be able to find a location on the back porch
where it will work, but you will not be able to maintain the
connection as reflections and multipath conspire to ruin your day.

If you have a hip roof, you might consider installing the wireless
access point in the ceiling, so it only has one wall (the outside
wall) to go through.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558