Few Questions about external antenna etc before purchase!

Hi, have read the forums and a hell of a lot of internet sites about external antennas etc etc. Basically what i want to do is be a bit nosy around my area, and also provide my cousin who lives 400 yards away with some internet access. I knwo there are lots of access points in my immediate vicinity, a quick dog walk with my PDA reveals 36 on my block alone, with a further 76 within a 150 meter radius. some are open, some are are not, however the moment i step into my house only a few are avzailible (4 max) and on some equipment on my own.

OK so here is what equipment i have.

laptop with intel 3945 abg mini pci.

tplink pcmcia card which ive modded with an sma connector.

linksys wrt150n router.

my plans are to flash the router with the dd-wrt firmware (i do have access to a wrt54g also).

buy one of these kits > 'Wireless antenna,WiFi Antenna,2.4GHz 5GHz Wlan Antenna,RF connector,RF pigtail cable,Lightning Protector,802.11 a/b/g, Omni ,panel ,yagi ,Grid antenna'

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which comes with everything ill need.

my questions are will this work, will i be able to hook my laptop, or the router in access point mode and gain access to the many wireless networks surrounding me. Im a bit dubious due to a frien buying both expensive and cheap 14dbi panel directional antenna and them generally being worse than if there wasnt an antenna on (one was a hawking one).

will i need power amplifier (thats not so say i wont get one anyway in the future) , the wrt150n from what i can gather outputs about 175 mW on B 155 mW on G and 150mW on N , @ about 23dbi (standard firmware) this should be more than enough should it not without taking into consideration tinkering with the dd-wrt firmware?

any thoughts, suggestions etc etc much appreciated, .

many thank,.

p.s. i am in the UK .

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Reply to
Thecheekymonkey
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An omni is useless for what you want to do. You can add a reflector to get decent directional performance.

Any high gain directional antenna will probably get a decent signal out to about 150 meters from inside a house.

An outside antenna should go double that.

Cable length can nulify any antenna performance.

Bit naughty pinching wifi.

Cheers

Rob

Reply to
me here

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