Greetings - I just set up a wireless Dlink DWL-G510 Wireless PCI Adapter
802.11g on my daughter's computer in her upstairs bedroom last night. The signal is extremely weak to non-existant. I have been looking at a range of omni directional antennas selling in the range of $15 to $30 U.S. which I would use to replace the antenna on the wireless NIC. My main computer and the router (SMC Barricade) are in the basement of the house.
My questions before I thorough bad money after good are: am I likely to achieve a satisfactory signal if I installl one these. And is there a particular brand and model that someone with experience in this area could recommend
Is the computer stuck under a desk somewhere? If so, experiment with putting in the same position as where the antenna would be, then subtract a little for the losses in the antenna cable.
You may be better off with a USB 2.0 wireless access point which can be positioned for the highest signal level, since there are no losses through the antenna cable. These may be less expensive than an antenna, as well. For example, the Motorola WU830G, or the MSI UB54G-WB, are under $20 on-line. I have the Buffalo WLI2-USB2-G54, which was $40, which I chose because it has an antenna jack for an external antenna, if necessary, but I saw no improvement with an antenna.
If you do go the antenna route, get a directional antenna, and be sure that it comes with a cable, and that the cable has the mating connector for your PCI card.
One thing I noticed at Fry's, was that nearly every antenna on the shelf had the little sticker indicating that it was a return, meaning that most buyers saw no improvement, or actually saw degradation.
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I had the need of an amplified antenna too. Instead of what they told me, it had to be attached _to the router_ (thus it worked), NOT to the wireless NIC (did not work this way). The antenna is a Netgear ANT2405; all the equipment is Netgear.
That's a two-floor distance? In my house I used a Netgear +5db antenna, just good enough for the signal to climb up one floor... It could be enough if you could place the router about mid-way between the two PC. Otherwise, +5db might be too weak, depending on the thickness of the walls, ceilings... It would be useful to test (maybe with a wireless laptop?)
One last surprise I had with my antenna: it just could not be used without a cable (optional, of course), otherwise I was left with two male SMA connectors facing each other -- this is smart from Netgear...
If you have a weak connection, an antenna is going to make a good improvement. If you had no connection, it would be hard to say.
You don't want an omni antenna, you want directional.
To start, the pattern from your antenna (both WAP and client) is like a donut dropped over the antenna. If you want the signal to go upstairs, the antenna should probably be parallel to the floor. If there is any horizontal offset between the downstairs (front of the house?) and upstairs (back of the house?), the antenna should be broadside to the desired direction of signal. The two antennas should wind up parallel to each other. Reflections play with these ideals, so don't ignore a bounce through a stairwell possibly being better than going through a floor.
I personally would install an EZ-12 Windsurfer. Free, easy, and effective. In your case, one on the WAP, another on the PCI card.
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EZ-12, printed on photo paper for thick stock, with aluminum foil glued to the sail, provides a substantial boost in signal.
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The signal with the reflector is not only 13dB stronger, it's more stable.
With 54g connections, I find that watching the "current bandwidth" in the Windows perfmon.msc is a pretty good signal indicator. start-run-perfmon.msc + Performance Object = Network Numbers agree with dslreports. + Performance Object = TCP "current bandwidth"
Applying that to the windsurfer reflector test shows 54-48 fluctuations with the reflector and 36-28 fluctuations with an occasional 54 without the reflector.
I also used iperf to watch the transfer throughput. It is improved and more stable with the reflector.
On one PC, I added a "Hawking HAI6SDA Directional 6dBi 2.4GHz Antenna"
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The system where I installed the Hawking antenna has a Netgear WG311, which has a tiny antenna. It was also oriented in such a way that the antenna was completely shielded from the WAP by the body of the PC. The Hawking improved the signal, according to the simple WinXP graphic, from one bar to three or four. BitTorrent downloads now completely swamp the DSL, where it used to still work slowly for other users before ;-)
The only Buffalo indoor antenna that actually improves signal strength is the high gain omni (WLE-HG-NDR). The others are only useful for relocating the antenna away from the card or base station.
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