With more and more restrictions and greed rearing its ugly little head in
the sellphone data biz, trying to get the most money out of you for the
least bandwidth delivered, I've come to the realization that it's time to
dump it and play with something better, telling cellular carriers to kiss
my *** while looking for faster, better alternatives.....FREE
alternatives.
There's tons of free wifi from restaurants, hotels, open hotspots in
homes and businesses available around here. If the restaurant you're
sitting in is across the parking lot or street from the hotel, you can
get a marginal, much faster internet connection on wifi, even if the
signal is poor, usually.
What's needed is a better wifi than the cheap piece of PC board antenna,
half blocked off by the LCD and its mounting frame in any netbook,
notebook or tablet. There must be a more RF friendly way.
I met some wardrivers in a net forum specializing in the sport that swear
this little $32 2 watt wireless adapter is the answer....very cheaply!
They shouldn't let people like me have Paypal and Google Checkout
accounts. I ordered one and the little suction cup holder to stick it to
the window or napkin holder? at Waffle House. I can connect to two
hotels if the sun isn't heating up the parking lot, wiping out my tiny
20mw transceiver on its useless antenna. This puppy has 100 times more
power and a high gain real antenna I can stick up away from the power
sucking stuff and computer's own RF noises.
I'll let you know how it works.
This was brought about by Cricket's new pricing structure for
"unlimited" broadband. Up til now, they really haven't enforced the GB
"limit" before dropping your bandwidth to 10%. With money now more of an
object, selling 3 levels of "limits" before the speed goes to ****, 2.5GB
for $40, 5GB for $50 and 7.5GB for $60/month, I think it's time to let my
account lapse next month and toss the Cricket modem into the bin for the
last time. Cellular just can't help itself selling it by the
byte....like SMS/MMS. http://www.mycricket.com/broadband/plans
On 11/9/2010 9:18 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per Fred:
>>
>> http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
>> 1000mW/Detail.bok
>
> The page tells a lot of stuff, but does not tell what the device
> does.
>
> Can somebody dumb it down for me?
>
> Is it some sort of WAP that hangs on to a PC that's already
> connected to an IP?
Don't waste your time. Larry just likes to periodically show up to
complain about having to pay for stuff and then show that his "higher
power is better" ideas are stuck in the past.
When two wireless devices "talk" they each need to receive and transmit
to each other. If you boost the transmit power of one it only means the
other can hear you from a little further away but that is nothing useful
since the one with the higher transmit power can no longer hear the
other one.
And it is considered bad form because the higher power unit is spraying
out a lot of signal which does nothing except cause pollution for other
devices.
This is one of the main reasons why cellular carriers had to add so many
sites when we transitioned to handsets. The older wider spacing meant
your phone could hear the tower but the tower couldn't hear your phone.
On 11/8/2010 8:55 PM, Fred wrote:
> With more and more restrictions and greed rearing its ugly little head in
> the sellphone data biz, trying to get the most money out of you for the
> least bandwidth delivered, I've come to the realization that it's time to
> dump it and play with something better, telling cellular carriers to kiss
> my *** while looking for faster, better alternatives.....FREE
> alternatives.
>
> There's tons of free wifi from restaurants, hotels, open hotspots in
> homes and businesses available around here. If the restaurant you're
> sitting in is across the parking lot or street from the hotel, you can
> get a marginal, much faster internet connection on wifi, even if the
> signal is poor, usually.
>
> What's needed is a better wifi than the cheap piece of PC board antenna,
> half blocked off by the LCD and its mounting frame in any netbook,
> notebook or tablet. There must be a more RF friendly way.
Remember in a tablet it's even more complicated because the antennas
need to work in both portrait and landscape mode. There's no great
solution. You saw what happened when Apple put the new iPhone antenna on
the outside.
The solution for much better range is a Wi-Fi device with an external
antenna, as you apparently are about to try. You can get these for USB
ports, Ethernet ports, and CardBus slots (not sure about ExpressCard
slots. For older laptops, the gold standard was the Buffalo AirStation
G54 WLI-CB-G54HP which is a CardBus card, which also has an antenna
connector.
Or try
"http://www.amazon.com/BlueProton-1000mW-802-11b-Adapter-Antenna/dp/B003F6GTCO".
There are also high-power Ethernet bridges, i.e.
"http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Technology-AirStation-Converter-WLI-TX4-G54HP/dp/B000BNDEZY"
which are great, but require an external power adapter.
> I met some wardrivers in a net forum specializing in the sport that swear
> this little $32 2 watt wireless adapter is the answer....very cheaply!
>
> http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
> 1000mW/Detail.bok
>
> They shouldn't let people like me have Paypal and Google Checkout
> accounts. I ordered one and the little suction cup holder to stick it to
> the window or napkin holder? at Waffle House. I can connect to two
> hotels if the sun isn't heating up the parking lot, wiping out my tiny
> 20mw transceiver on its useless antenna. This puppy has 100 times more
> power and a high gain real antenna I can stick up away from the power
> sucking stuff and computer's own RF noises.
>
> I'll let you know how it works.
>
> This was brought about by Cricket's new pricing structure for
> "unlimited" broadband. Up til now, they really haven't enforced the GB
> "limit" before dropping your bandwidth to 10%. With money now more of an
> object, selling 3 levels of "limits" before the speed goes to ****, 2.5GB
> for $40, 5GB for $50 and 7.5GB for $60/month, I think it's time to let my
> account lapse next month and toss the Cricket modem into the bin for the
> last time.
The tiered pricing is designed to get people to use Wi-Fi when
available, and stop wasting the limited 2G/3G/4G capacity. AT&T has been
successful with the elimination of unlimited data, replacing it with the
lower cost 200MB and 2GB plans. The bottom line is that most people can
easily survive with 200MB if they're not downloading massive numbers of
videos, or streaming Pandora hundred of hours a month. I'd pay Verizon
$15 a month for 200MB, but not $30 a month for unlimited.
When you see studies that look at the average amount of data a 3G user
on an unlimited plan uses per month, these are hopelessly skewed by the
fact that the user does not make the slightest effort to use Wi-Fi when
it's available. When you're at an unlimited buffet, you eat all you can.
The real study, if it were possible to do, would be to look at how much
of the data usage on 3G takes place where there is also free Wi-Fi.
However since most people don't have VPN service, there's a good reason
to use 2G/3G/4G rather than Wi-Fi in many cases, especially with the new
Firesheep add-on for Firefox, which makes it so easy to hijack
non-secure data.
> When two wireless devices "talk" they each need to receive and transmit
> to each other. If you boost the transmit power of one it only means the
> other can hear you from a little further away but that is nothing useful
> since the one with the higher transmit power can no longer hear the
> other one.
Except the routers are higher power, and better positioned, with good
antennas.
In reality, the high power devices like the one Larry bought work quite
well.
Nope. Your quote assumes, wrongly, that the hotels and restaurants have
802.11n routers, which they don't. So, N, though SUPPORTED by my new
router makes no difference, whatsoever, here.
Any 802.11 speed is lightyears more than any internet modem cap you can
access. Unless you are using peer-to-peer across a local LAN, and we're
not, which 802 standard it connects to is moot. A 54Mbps 802.11b is FAR
more data than the 2Mbps modem cap "pinhole" to the internet any wifi
router is hooked to, even the commercial ones.
The other thing is the reality of radio physics over long distances. The
longer the distance between the router's radio and yours, the slower the
link will be, no matter what standard is in use. N on 5.6Ghz has FAR
more attenuation per mile than b or g on 2.4Ghz. 5.6Ghz multipath far
exceeds 2.4Ghz, too, as many more objects will bounce it. Study the
attenuation of both frequency bands going through a pine forest and both
are horrible, but 5.6 is more horrible. Microwaves don't like
vegetation, at all! That's why microwave antennas are so high to get
long path lengths.
Point-to-point only works over miles because the antenna radiation
patterns prevent multipath with very narrow beam widths at the
transmitter and very narrow receive apertures at the receivers. That's
not an option on a shared channel like wifi with a hundred transceivers
competing for a time slot. One of the Pringle's Cantenna's biggest
problem is crashing in RF intensive environments, like dense cities full
of modems. The Pringle's Cantenna has a very narrow, but high gain beam.
Anyone off to the side or behind the can doesn't hear its signal very far
at all, so transmits at the wrong time, crashing with it at the receiver.
Higher power on a high gain omnidirectional antenna is FAR superior
because when the "big gun" is transmitting it 360 degree signal, everyone
else's receiver hears it and holds off until it's done. This 2 watt wifi
adapter is just what the doctor ordered at the full 4 watts ERP the FCC
allows (5dbi antennas are actually 3dbd, 3db over a dipole = 2 watts x 2
= 4W ERP, effective radiated power). Its throughput with much less
crashing will beat the Pringle's can because of it.
802.11n does have an advantage of a much quieter band due, at this time,
to the little traffic being handled on that band. 90%+ of the stations
are on the 2.4 Ghz band. But, it's moot until the hotspot community
upgrades to N capability. Most of my free hotspot connections are
actually 802.11b, not even g. B works better over long path because of
its slower data rate.
To see the extreme of this physics, one needs look no further than the
15bps now being sent from Voyager 1 and 2 to the massive Earth-wide array
of antennas pointed at it trying to pick up its very tiny traveling wave
tube transmitters. Data rates take hours to download anything from the
Oort Cloud because of all the attenuation and noise on Voyager channels.
Very interestingly, one of the replacement Voyager engineers told me the
spacecraft are STILL using the SAME tape cartridge and tape drive and the
SAME traveling wave tube microwave amplifier that blasted off Earth in
1967....simply amazing MTBF for such a primitive mechanical technology.
That same physics, unfortunately, is causing us to hear less and less as
the thermonuclear stars in the receiver apertures now make more white
noise than the signal level from Voyagers' transmitters, blanking them
out except when they move in certain areas with less background radiation
noise. Too bad we had to launch them into the galactic plane to get the
slingshot speeds of pass-by planetary gravity.
We'll see how much of my $32 is wasted next week after it gets here.
"Compatible with all wireless PC networking standards & access-points:
802.11N, 802.11G, 802.11B networks ("WiFi")"
It makes no difference to me, but you didn't get the model number correct
before you quoted this article. My adapter is a AWUS036>N<H, not just an
H, which includes the N transceiver.
It's amazing how much technology $32 can buy, isn't it?
"(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid> wrote in
news:7ulid6d9qp6r05qojpt781ssdamq4sccv3@4ax.com:
> Per Fred:
>>
>>http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
>>1000mW/Detail.bok
>
> The page tells a lot of stuff, but does not tell what the device
> does.
>
> Can somebody dumb it down for me?
>
> Is it some sort of WAP that hangs on to a PC that's already
> connected to an IP?
It replaces the poor little wifi radio and antenna inside your
netbook/notebook/laptop/tablet with a much higher power external USB-
connected wifi radio system with a much more serious antenna away from
the RF blocking video screen and really noisy (RF wise) computer running
inside the laptop. Now free from being saddled with where the computer
must set so you can see and use it, never in the best orientation for its
pitifully inadequate cheap antenna, the external wifi radio can see and
communicate with a much larger variety of wifi hotspots the laptop can't
even detect, much less use for internet access. This USB adapter also
has a transmitter that's 100 times more powerful than the 20mw peanut
whistle transmitter the computer came with, making your signal at the
wifi across the parking lot much stronger at the hotspot receiver.
Between the 100 times more power, much more powerful antenna gain and
much better antenna position, say stuck to the plate glass window next to
your table, the signal at the hotspot will be hundreds to thousands of
times stronger than before on the laptop's little transceiver. This
gives the system much longer range to more reliably connect to the
hotspots and more hotspots to choose from.
It's a much better radio system.
It replaces the internal wifi radio, which you disable in the operating
system, and runs off a much nicer wifi interface that gives you much more
radio information than Windows or Mac or Linux provides. The driver also
optimizes the USB port it's plugged into for better
throughput....probably at the expense of other USB devices sharing the
ports.
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:4cd97562$0$22104
$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:
> Remember in a tablet it's even more complicated because the antennas
> need to work in both portrait and landscape mode. There's no great
> solution. You saw what happened when Apple put the new iPhone antenna
on
> the outside.
>
Alfa also has a solution for the tablets, like iPad, who have no ports to
plug it into. This Router is especially configured to mate with the high
powered adapter to form a wifi repeater. This will allow the wifi
tablets, sellphones and any other Air notebook Apple forgets to put ports
on use of the high powered USB wireless adapter. Instead of trying to
connect the Maxipad to the hotel across the street, which isn't gonna
work with its antennas swiveling around from landscape to portrait and
pointing at the floor laying on a tabletop, you connect the Maxipad to
your own router's hotspot sitting next to you and let IT do the
connecting to the hotspot in the hotel down the street with its powerful
2 watt transmitter and high gain antenna....just like my netbook will do
directly.
This is a great solution to the horrible wifi range of these thoughtless
tablets like the Maxipad. Connected to your own hotspot repeater, it
won't make any difference how you hold it or what you set it on as the
local router will always have plenty of signal to overcome its
deficiencies.......without paying some sellphone *******s $60 for 5GB.
On 2010-11-09, Fred <nobody@here.net> wrote:
> I met some wardrivers in a net forum specializing in the sport that swear
> this little $32 2 watt wireless adapter is the answer....very cheaply!
>
> http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
> 1000mW/Detail.bok
Thanks for pointing that out, I ordered one to see if it makes
GoogleWiFi useful for something. GoogleWiFi needs both high
power (> 0.5W) and a real antenna sitting somewhere with a clear view.
I've seen decent connections using AC powered client bridges, but
that's the first USB-powered device I've seen which has the right
specs to work as well.
On 09/11/10 9:38 AM, Fred wrote:
> "Elmo P. Shagnasty"<elmop@nastydesigns.com> wrote in news:elmop-
> B275C0.05425909112010@62-183-169-81.bb.dnainternet.fi:
>
>> Sorry, Lar. You just wasted $32.
>>
>>
>
> Nope. Your quote assumes, wrongly, that the hotels and restaurants have
> 802.11n routers, which they don't. So, N, though SUPPORTED by my new
> router makes no difference, whatsoever, here.
Yes, that's going to be the case for many more years. Unless there was a
high power device that's high power in both N and G modes, you made a
good purchase.
On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:46:18 -0800
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Yes, that's going to be the case for many more years. Unless there was a
> high power device that's high power in both N and G modes, you made a
> good purchase.
As I understand it, an 802.11n device falls back to g if there is even one g device on the network, so in MANY cases it doesn't even make sense to use n routers (for example, if you own a hotel and offer wifi to your guests, since you can't guarantee everyone will have n).
Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:slrnidja04.7g.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com:
> On 2010-11-09, Fred <nobody@here.net> wrote:
>> I met some wardrivers in a net forum specializing in the sport that
>> swear this little $32 2 watt wireless adapter is the answer....very
>> cheaply!
>>
>> http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
>> 1000mW/Detail.bok
>
> Thanks for pointing that out, I ordered one to see if it makes
> GoogleWiFi useful for something. GoogleWiFi needs both high
> power (> 0.5W) and a real antenna sitting somewhere with a clear view.
> I've seen decent connections using AC powered client bridges, but
> that's the first USB-powered device I've seen which has the right
> specs to work as well.
>
> Dennis Ferguson
>
Quite welcome. I'm anxious to have my sweaty hands on it, too.
I'm determined to get away from the sellphone greed, or go off the net.
Fred <nobody@here.net> wrote in
news:Xns9E2AF35449743nobodyherenet@74.209.131.13:
> I met some wardrivers in a net forum specializing in the sport that
> swear this little $32 2 watt wireless adapter is the answer....very
> cheaply!
>
> http://www.data-alliance.net/-strse-...S036NH-2000mW-
> 1000mW/Detail.bok
>
>
The beast is in shipment Priority Mail from AZ....(c;]
On 11/9/2010 11:26 AM, SMS wrote:
> On 11/9/2010 6:58 AM, George wrote:
>
>> When two wireless devices "talk" they each need to receive and transmit
>> to each other. If you boost the transmit power of one it only means the
>> other can hear you from a little further away but that is nothing useful
>> since the one with the higher transmit power can no longer hear the
>> other one.
>
> Except the routers are higher power, and better positioned, with good
> antennas.
>
Why would that (higher power) be? Typically a good design doesn't spray
excess RF since as I described it makes no sense to use high power. That
is just something that persists from the days of one way communication
with people forgetting that Wi-Fi is two way.
> In reality, the high power devices like the one Larry bought work quite
> well.
Better external antennas work well. High power devices are just poorly
designed devices that make RF pollution.
George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in news:ibe20l$ikh$1@news.eternal-
september.org:
> Why would that (higher power) be? Typically a good design doesn't spray
> excess RF since as I described it makes no sense to use high power. That
> is just something that persists from the days of one way communication
> with people forgetting that Wi-Fi is two way.
>
>
You sound like a sellphone company trying to justify cutting the power down
for the 12th time to increase calls/sq km and increase company profits.
Stop drinking the Koolaid! The wifi with the biggest dick rules the roost!
It really is that simple.....
On 10/11/10 8:21 AM, Fred wrote:
> George<george@nospam.invalid> wrote in news:ibe20l$ikh$1@news.eternal-
> september.org:
>
>> Why would that (higher power) be? Typically a good design doesn't spray
>> excess RF since as I described it makes no sense to use high power. That
>> is just something that persists from the days of one way communication
>> with people forgetting that Wi-Fi is two way.
>>
>>
>
> You sound like a sellphone company trying to justify cutting the power down
> for the 12th time to increase calls/sq km and increase company profits.
On 11/11/2010 9:58 AM, SMS wrote:
> On 10/11/10 8:21 AM, Fred wrote:
>> George<george@nospam.invalid> wrote in news:ibe20l$ikh$1@news.eternal-
>> september.org:
>>
>>> Why would that (higher power) be? Typically a good design doesn't spray
>>> excess RF since as I described it makes no sense to use high power. That
>>> is just something that persists from the days of one way communication
>>> with people forgetting that Wi-Fi is two way.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> You sound like a sellphone company trying to justify cutting the power
>> down
>> for the 12th time to increase calls/sq km and increase company profits.
>
> He just doesn't understand how 802.11 works.
Actually I do understand how radio communication works (interesting that
if someone actually knows how something works they are acting on behalf
of some corporation).
Your "he doesn't understand 802.11" indicates that you really don't
understand fundamental ideas because 802.11 is simply the protocol that
defines how the devices "talk" to use simple terms. Underneath that it
is still basic radio communication.
At any rate I will simplify it for you and Larry. If you have a simple
communications system that is unidirectional such as pagers, radio, TV
etc power (including ERP due to antenna gain) is very meaningful and
boosting it will increase coverage.
Two way systems require both a receiver and transmitter on each "end".
So to have successful communications each receiver has to be able to
hear the other transmitter. If you boost the transmit signal on one end
you now have a mismatched system since the receiver on the other end can
now hear the transmitter from a greater distance but since its transmit
power is still the same the other receiver can't hear it.
Sorry you and Larry don't understand such basic ideas which can be shown
by modeling and also practically with actual equipment.
> Sorry you and Larry don't understand such basic ideas which can be shown
> by modeling and also practically with actual equipment.
What you're confused about is how the bi-directionality functions.
Wireless access points, if installed correctly, can be seen by clients
from a much greater distance than is practical for a low power client to
communicate from. The higher power clients work extremely well at
allowing connections to be established at the highest possible speed.
Part of the reason is the improved antenna on the high power client
side, and part is because of the increased power level.
I've tried several high power clients, including USB, CardBus, and
Ethernet. They all allow connections at a further distance and higher
speed than the built-in wireless.
On 11/11/2010 12:35 PM, SMS wrote:
> On 11/11/10 7:56 AM, George wrote:
>
>> Sorry you and Larry don't understand such basic ideas which can be shown
>> by modeling and also practically with actual equipment.
>
> What you're confused about is how the bi-directionality functions.
> Wireless access points, if installed correctly, can be seen by clients
> from a much greater distance than is practical for a low power client to
> communicate from. The higher power clients work extremely well at
> allowing connections to be established at the highest possible speed.
> Part of the reason is the improved antenna on the high power client
> side, and part is because of the increased power level.
>
> I've tried several high power clients, including USB, CardBus, and
> Ethernet. They all allow connections at a further distance and higher
> speed than the built-in wireless.
Remember the point is high power not changing the equation using a
different antenna system.
You can stick with eternal black cloud ***** all of the time about stuff
he doesn't understand Larrys "The wifi with the biggest dick rules the
roost!". I will go with things I know based on my applied education.
George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in news:ibhq54$12e$1@news.eternal-
september.org:
> You can stick with eternal black cloud ***** all of the time about
stuff
> he doesn't understand Larrys "The wifi with the biggest dick rules the
> roost!". I will go with things I know based on my applied education.
>
I go with 20 years in digital communications, mostly paging. The bigger
the transmitterS, the more of them, all on the same frequency, the better
the coverage......in some really amazing places where it should have
never paged.....in a metal coffee can 25 miles from the last transmitter
is always fun...(c;]
We built pagers from pieces parts in a really nice screen room. The
paging transmitters had so much signal leaking into a commercial screen
room, especially on the upper UHF bands, it was hard to tweak the
receivers before midnight when the damned thing would unkey long
enough....MILES from the screen room and shop....so you could hear the
test signal generator.
RF is RF. The transmitter with the biggest dick STILL rules the chicken
coop.
POWER IS OUR FRIEND.
Your local UHF TV station doesn't run 25MW ERP just to see how many birds
they can kill. Come down from the tower with a sunburn many times...(c;]
I go with 50+ years of radio (RF) communications. Big woop...
>mostly paging.
The problem here is some digital guys apparently don't understand RF.
>The bigger the transmitterS, the more of them, all on the same frequency, the better
>the coverage.....
The transmitter is but *half* the communication. The receiver on
*both* ends must be able to hear the other equally for the best
two-way communication to take place.
>RF is RF. The transmitter with the biggest dick STILL rules the chicken
>coop.
Being a ham radio operator I often work QRP (5 watts or less). I can
often hear other hams using high power (1000 watts or more) but they
can't hear my peanut whistle so no contact.
It's the same with digital, the contact (connection) is controlled by
the *weakest* signal. So even though you may be running high power, if
your receiver has difficulty hearing the other end because it's
running low power then you get either very slow throughput or none at
all.
>POWER IS OUR FRIEND.
You would be better served with a directional antenna which improves
things on both ends.
>Your local UHF TV station doesn't run 25MW ERP just to see how many birds
>they can kill. Come down from the tower with a sunburn many times...(c;]
Bad example. They are using *one-way* communication and trying to
cover as much area as possible. Nobody is trying to communicate back.
Nothing at all to do with the digital *two-way* communication being
discussed here.
AJL <9887567654@fakeaddress.com> wrote in
news:rhuqd65hrdihdn0ukobt8r64u1ftr9c8ke@4ax.com:
> You would be better served with a directional antenna which improves
> things on both ends.
>
Not true on shared wifi. That would be true on an unshared channel, but
if only the hotspot can hear you and the other stations sharing the
limited 11 channels of 2450 Mhz wifi, they transmit when you do and the
signals crash. If you can be heard by the radios of the other users,
they hold off transmitting their packets until your POWERFUL transmitter
is off....lots less crashing.
When you hear people reporting poor performance of any wifi, it's almost
always crashing because the transceivers have so little power and,
instead of a real antenna, the users MUST have everything hidden away in
all their glitz...sellphones, laptops, iPad, iPhone, netbooks....The
fashion statement always comes at the expense of system performance. I'd
buy a netbook with a big pullup antenna rated at 12 db gain that was 3'
high if they made it. Screw the fashion statement. I'm wearin'
UnderArmour drawers, that's enough.
>> You would be better served with a directional antenna which improves
>> things on both ends.
>Not true on shared wifi.
True with any kind of RF (digitally encoded or otherwise). It's *pure
physics*. If you add an 18db gain directional antenna to your wifi,
the receiver on the other end can't tell if you added an 18db gain
antenna or increased your power by 18db. Likewise your receiver sees
an 18db stronger signal than if it were hooked to it's original
antenna. Maybe more since embedded antennas often have negative gain.
Another advantage of a directional antenna is that it nulls all the
other wifi signals off the sides and back of the antenna so there is
less interference to deal with. That's why virtually all serious wifi
extenders (such as for RV use) include a directional antenna.
AJL <9887567654@fakeaddress.com> wrote in
newslsrd6dhkrf6f0sc4kmrfibnnpee5nio3c@4ax.com:
> Another advantage of a directional antenna is that it nulls all the
> other wifi signals off the sides and back of the antenna so there is
> less interference to deal with. That's why virtually all serious wifi
> extenders (such as for RV use) include a directional antenna.
>
But, your thinking is wrong on a shared channel, like all wifi
channels.....
POINT TO POINT wifi, like connecting building A to building B with no
other competing users on your own channel...you're right. But, public
wifi isn't like that! There are 11 channels in the USA and, in most
cities, hundreds of users connected to hundreds of wifi hotspots who can
interfere with each other. IF you have a directional antenna where half
the users' receivers cannot hear you, they don't know you're on the air
and transmit on top of you. When the hotspot you are sharing with 30
other people hears two signals at once, because of your very directional
antenna, it cannot make out the data from the competing stations on the
air simultaneously. It's called a "crash" and that packet must be resent
another time, jamming the channel and holding everyone up. When all the
stations can hear all the other stations on Channel 6, there's no
crashing because the transceivers are smart enough to wait until there's
a dead time to occupy the channel. Data flows smoothly at maximum speed
between all the shared users....with little crashing.
On 11/12/2010 10:35 PM, AJL wrote:
> Fred<nobody@here.net> wrote:
>
>> AJL<9887567654@fakeaddress.com> wrote
>
>>> You would be better served with a directional antenna which improves
>>> things on both ends.
>
>> Not true on shared wifi.
>
> True with any kind of RF (digitally encoded or otherwise). It's *pure
> physics*. If you add an 18db gain directional antenna to your wifi,
> the receiver on the other end can't tell if you added an 18db gain
> antenna or increased your power by 18db. Likewise your receiver sees
> an 18db stronger signal than if it were hooked to it's original
> antenna. Maybe more since embedded antennas often have negative gain.
> Another advantage of a directional antenna is that it nulls all the
> other wifi signals off the sides and back of the antenna so there is
> less interference to deal with. That's why virtually all serious wifi
> extenders (such as for RV use) include a directional antenna.
He just doesn't get (and never will) why his "mega power" fetish is so
silly. This is just his latest silliness likely to be followed by a few
months of non scientific posts extolling the "advantages" of unilateral
higher power in two way communications.
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 08:40:12 -0500, George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> He just doesn't get (and never will) why his "mega power" fetish is so
> silly. This is just his latest ...
Sorry, George, but you're *both* right. Many's the time I've been within figurative earshot of a wireless access point -- barely -- and have been unable to connect to it -- until I moved my equipment a whole lot closer to it.
Why's that? my "ears" were OK, but my "voice" was too weak for the WAP to hear -- until I got closer.
Had I gotten *louder* instead, I'd have achieved the same effect, n'est-ce pas? That's Fred's point :-) .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
On 2010-11-12, AJL <9887567654@fakeaddress.com> wrote:
> Fred <nobody@here.net> wrote:
> The problem here is some digital guys apparently don't understand RF.
>
>>The bigger the transmitterS, the more of them, all on the same frequency, the better
>>the coverage.....
>
> The transmitter is but *half* the communication. The receiver on
> *both* ends must be able to hear the other equally for the best
> two-way communication to take place.
That's absolutely true if the bandwidth requirements in each
direction are the same, i.e. both ends are sending CW or NBFM
or digital cell phone voice. Since the information rate each
end needs to send is the same both ends will optimally require
the same amount of power to send it so the other end can hear
it.
The complexity with 802.11 is that there is another dimension: the
bit rate each end sends with is variable, and each end independently
sets its sending bit rate based on observations of how well the
other end is hearing it (google "rate adaptation"). This is why
it is still advantageous for one end to run at higher power
even if the other end doesn't. The higher power at one end
alone won't increase coverage, but it will increase the capacity
of the network since the ability of the higher power end to send
at higher bit rates will allow either or both ends of the connection
to send more stuff. That is, since the channel is time-shared,
the higher bit rate can be used to allow the higher power end
to send more bits in a given time or to send the same bits in less
time, with the latter freeing up time on the channel so the lower
power guys can send more often.
So since higher power at one end can improve things (capacity, if
not coverage) even if the other end doesn't match it, it isn't
uncommon for APs in particular to run at higher power than the
typical laptop client. It is relatively cheap for the AC-powered
AP to do so, and it is hard to know what power output clients
might be using in any case. I think the two APs I have in my
house run at 200 mW output even though my laptop proably runs
at 1/4 or 1/10th that.
Of course if higher power is often used at the AP to increase
capacity that power is also available to use to increase range,
at lower bit rates, if a client produces enough power to match
it. As a practical matter a higher power client adapter will
often get you better range since a lot of APs run at significantly
higher power than their more usual clients.
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:02:55 -0500, in
<op.vl4p65wxitl47o@acer250.gateway.2wire.net>, tlvp
<tPlOvUpBErLeLsEs@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 08:40:12 -0500, George <george@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>> He just doesn't get (and never will) why his "mega power" fetish is so
>> silly. This is just his latest ...
>
>Sorry, George, but you're *both* right. Many's the time I've been within figurative earshot of a wireless access point -- barely -- and have been unable to connect to it -- until I moved my equipment a whole lot closer to it.
>
>Why's that? my "ears" were OK, but my "voice" was too weak for the WAP to hear -- until I got closer.
>
>Had I gotten *louder* instead, I'd have achieved the same effect, n'est-ce pas? That's Fred's point :-) .
Better antenna is a better solution.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:55:08 +0000, in
<Xns9E2AF35449743nobodyherenet@74.209.131.13>, Fred <nobody@here.net>
wrote:
>This was brought about by Cricket's new pricing structure for
>"unlimited" broadband. Up til now, they really haven't enforced the GB
>"limit" before dropping your bandwidth to 10%. With money now more of an
>object, selling 3 levels of "limits" before the speed goes to ****, 2.5GB
>for $40, 5GB for $50 and 7.5GB for $60/month, I think it's time to let my
>account lapse next month and toss the Cricket modem into the bin for the
>last time. Cellular just can't help itself selling it by the
>byte....like SMS/MMS.
>http://www.mycricket.com/broadband/plans
T-Mobile offers "unlimited" data for $20 month more than voice alone,
with excellent HSPA speeds, and tethering is standard on my Nexus One,
both cable and wireless hotspot. Highly recommended.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
Bye bye Aircard.... 
lsrd6dhkrf6f0sc4kmrfibnnpee5nio3c@4ax.com:
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