..).@)..). wrote:
> We are both in stucco houses and his router is on a desk in a bedroom.
> What would happen if I installed a 15db gain vertical whip antenna? It
> would have to work better than my rubber ducky on a Senoa card right?
Stucco might be bad because of the wire mesh used to hold the stucco.
But line of sight isn't necessarily the path taken by RF. I get better
signal through some non-aligned windows than direct line of site through
walls.
A 15dBi "omni" antenna would be a bad thing for this application.
You start out with "i", a single point of an antenna, radiating evenly in
all directions, a round balloon of RF. Then you squish it, giving a donut
shape, still the same volume of RF, but sticking out about 2dBi father, but
not as tall, in a typical rubber duckie stock antenna.
Squish it really flat, and it's a larger plate, still the same volume,
reaching much farther out to each point on a circle, but not very tall at
all. That might be 15dBi gain to the edges of the plate, but it's a thin
plate, hard to aim, and you are throwing a lot of energy out in unneeded
portions of that circle.
Take the same balloon of RF, and squeeze it into an open book, angling the
cover of the book at 90 degrees, and you get a directional antenna,
sticking out 10dBi in the direction that you want, and a taller vertical
radiation pattern. A directional antenna of moderate gain will be easier
to keep on target than a high gain omni.
http://www.freeantennas.com EZ-12, printed on photo paper for thick stock,
with aluminum foil glued to the sail, provides a substantial boost in
signal.
http://www.rahul.net/dold/clarence/EZ12-windsurfer.jpg http://www.rahul.net/dold/clarence/w...fer-dining.JPG The signal with
the reflector is not only 13dB stronger, it's more stable. Free, easy to
build (make the tabs longer than indicated), and you can check out the
effect of directional antennas without investing a lot of time or money.
Depending on the results, you might want higher gain antennas, or locate
antennas outdoors, or in a window, or give up altogether.
I have also used the "Hawking HAI6SDA Directional 6dBi 2.4GHz Antenna" with
good success on a Netgear WG311 PCI card. $20-30.
<http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=32&FamID=58&ProdID=122>
The one I bought fit the Netgear, and had an adapter that fit RP-TNC.
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Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5
Antenna questions, please help newbie, TIA! 
Linear Mode
