Wi-Fi Ranges

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:02:57 -0600, DTC
wrote:

kony wrote:
On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:32:02 GMT, DTC
wrote:

BillW50 wrote:
Google "cantenna".
Thanks Shaun!
Considering the time you spend building your own antenna with
unknown performance (not everyone has a 3 Gig SWR meter laying
around), you're better off buying a much better antenna.

15 dBi backfire antennas for $30 or 19 dBi "BBQ" grid for $40.


It would be nice to have a link to these.
Also, availability or price could vary per region, Shaun for
example is in New Zealand.

http://www.hyperlinktech.com
http://www.highgainantennas.com

come to mind

Maybe I'm just too lazy to look long enough but I did not
see the BBQ $40 antenna for 2.4GHz.

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:09:51 -0500, Kim Clay
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:17:23 -0500, kony wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:32:02 GMT, DTC
wrote:

BillW50 wrote:
Google "cantenna".

Thanks Shaun!

Considering the time you spend building your own antenna with
unknown performance (not everyone has a 3 Gig SWR meter laying
around), you're better off buying a much better antenna.

15 dBi backfire antennas for $30 or 19 dBi "BBQ" grid for $40.


It would be nice to have a link to these.

http://www.fab-corp.com/home.php?cat=251
14 dBi Backfire ---------- $38.65
15 dBi Parabolic Grid - $34.50
19 dBi Parabolic Grid - $39.00
24 dBi Parabolic Grid - $52.50

Wow, those are extremely good prices.




Also, availability or price could vary per region, Shaun for
example is in New Zealand.

http://www.fab-corp.com/pages.php?pageid=3
Our Shipping Q&A
Q: Where will you ship to?

A: We will ship anywhere we can legally ship to. Currently we can not
ship to Cuba, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, and North Korea.




& for those wanting to build something:
http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?productid=1549&cat=264&page=1
Build Your Own Cantenna Kit! - $12.95
Includes:
* 1 N Female Chassis Mount Connector
* 1 Pigtail of your choice below to connect to the N-Female
Chassis Mount.

N connectors I have, leftovers from a past era of 900MHz
jobs, but life being ironic as it is, most of my modern wifi
gear uses R-SMA instead. I could just modify it so the
equipment had N connectors and probably will, but didn't
have a compelling reason to yet.




Read their Shipping Q&A esp. concerning the Parabolic Grids.
http://www.fab-corp.com/pages.php?pageid=3

I'm wondering what the BBQ shipping rates are because the
sans-shipping price is almost too good to be true.

kony wrote:
Maybe I'm just too lazy to look long enough but I did not
see the BBQ $40 antenna for 2.4GHz.

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2419g.php


A lot of wifi gear does have signal strength reporting
functionality. While it's not perfect, it's a good start.

Unless the chip set actually has a signal level output, its
usually going to only show you the signal to noise ratio,
which is good enough if you test it where you know there
isn't any interference.

Just the other day I drive past an old satellite dish
someone was throwing away. I came quite close to chucking
the thing in my truck

I keep a notepad in the truck with addresses where I see the
old abandoned eight foot dishes, anticipating they would be cool
to play around with. I figure a simple A-frame gin pole on the
back of my truck could take them down in short time. An 802.11b
moon bounce would be pretty neat (after tweeking for the latency
delays).

if I had to wait a long
time it gets shelved and just clutters up the basement. I
HAVE to clean out my basement soon, LOL.

http://www.gensteel.com

DTC wrote:

if I had to wait a long
time it gets shelved and just clutters up the basement. I
HAVE to clean out my basement soon, LOL.

I used to have that problem, then I sold the house and moved

On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:15:09 GMT, DTC
wrote:

kony wrote:
Maybe I'm just too lazy to look long enough but I did not
see the BBQ $40 antenna for 2.4GHz.

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2419g.php


A lot of wifi gear does have signal strength reporting
functionality. While it's not perfect, it's a good start.

Unless the chip set actually has a signal level output, its
usually going to only show you the signal to noise ratio,
which is good enough if you test it where you know there
isn't any interference.

Sometimes the solution can be good enough in the only way
that matters, whether you can get sufficient strength from
point A to point B where you need to use it. There may not
be a need to find what is *best*, nor even have any accuracy
at all in measuring it, it is a means towards an end. It
just has to work.




Just the other day I drive past an old satellite dish
someone was throwing away. I came quite close to chucking
the thing in my truck

I keep a notepad in the truck with addresses where I see the
old abandoned eight foot dishes, anticipating they would be cool
to play around with. I figure a simple A-frame gin pole on the
back of my truck could take them down in short time. An 802.11b
moon bounce would be pretty neat (after tweeking for the latency
delays).

if I had to wait a long
time it gets shelved and just clutters up the basement. I
HAVE to clean out my basement soon, LOL.

http://www.gensteel.com

Already have a shed, dont' want to drag everything back and
forth as workshop is in the basement. Can't attach anything
to the house.

DTC writes:

A lot of wifi gear does have signal strength reporting
functionality. While it's not perfect, it's a good start.

Unless the chip set actually has a signal level output, its
usually going to only show you the signal to noise ratio,
which is good enough if you test it where you know there
isn't any interference.

Much of the 802.11 gear I've worked with has a field named RSSI
somewhere in the diagnostic info that can be printed by the software
that comes with it. RSSI means Received Signal Strength Indicator
anywhere I've encountered it. So that's a measurement (in possibly
arbitrary units) of signal strength, not simply signal to noise.

Dave

In ,
Dave Martindale typed on Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:05:16 +0000 (UTC):
DTC writes:

A lot of wifi gear does have signal strength reporting
functionality. While it's not perfect, it's a good start.

Unless the chip set actually has a signal level output, its
usually going to only show you the signal to noise ratio,
which is good enough if you test it where you know there
isn't any interference.

Much of the 802.11 gear I've worked with has a field named RSSI
somewhere in the diagnostic info that can be printed by the software
that comes with it. RSSI means Received Signal Strength Indicator
anywhere I've encountered it. So that's a measurement (in possibly
arbitrary units) of signal strength, not simply signal to noise.

Dave

I have two drivers for my US Robotics WiFi. The later version has
readings for both signal strength and signal to noise ratios.

--
Bill

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:08:09 -0600, "Neil"
wrote:

No, the chances of there being another hotspot are very slim, as there's
only a few types of business that have T-Mobile (Starbucks, Kinkos, some
hotels and airports -- that's about it). This wasn't a random hotspot. It
was a T-Mobile hotspot, and there are only a discreet set of them.

As for open ground, though, the place where I was down the street (to the
south) and a little west of where the hotspot was. In between (the
northwest
corner of the intersection where I was at) was open. Thus, between me and
the hotspot, there were no buildings. I'm sure that was it.


It is quite possible one of these other businesses had put a
repeater on their roof so they could enjoy using their
account inside without having to pay for on-site service.

The only way you could more reliably know for certain is to
take a wifi locator, signal strength meter back down there
and canvas the area looking for more spots not on maps.

It is certainly possible for signals to go 800 feet outside,
line of sight, but more surprising if you're inside the
sandwich shop, even moreso to maintain connection with a
laptop and do that in a shop where there might be a kitchen
with microwaves.

It was a Subway sandwich shop, so I don't think they had any microwaves
going. And I was (accidentally) sitting right by the window that was closest
to where that hot spot would have been. So it was almost like I was
outside -- the laptop was right next to the window.

Also, as noted, I only had one bar out of five. Still, I was able to surf
without any problems.

"curly Bill" wrote in message
...
Neil wrote:
So, I was at the local sandwich shop last night, and I noticed I was able
to pick up a signal from a local T-Mobile hotspot, which I have an
account with. It was only one bar out of five. But I was able to connect
to it and surf the web without any problems.

I then looked up the hotspots in the area, and I saw that the closest one
was a Fed-Ex/Kinkos about 2-3 blocks away. Measuring it on the map, I
estimate it to be at least 800 feet from where I was.

Is that normal for wi-fi routers to have such a large range? That seems a
bit far to be picking up a wi-fi signal. The router was a little uphill
from me, though not a very steep hill.


So, Neil
I think you were very successful getting responses for a stupid question,
and stretching it out by your responses.

For a troll you did very well.

I take it you don't have any friends to hang out with during winter break
from school.

Are you talking about yourself here? Because, obviously, if you had friends,
you'd be enjoying time with them, rather than wasting time in a thread that
you feel is "stupid." I'm just sayin'..