Need to buy a new wireless USB adapter, but which one to get?

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ANT if replying by e-mail.

I have a Belkin F5D8053 and I like it a lot. It seems to have good sensitivity and it comes with a stand and cable or it can be plugged directly into a USB port. When at work I can place the antenna on its pedestal and use it with a reflector made of cardboard and aluminum foil to get into the local hot spot. I've done this when I was camping also. One place had an internet porch but I was able to use my reflector for my lantern with my USB stick to connect from my campsite. It seemed the owners of the campground was trying to limit the number of people connected to the number of people who could sit on the porch.

Jimmie

Thanks. I see both Best Buy and Cirucit City have them near my place. The only problems are the low scored reviews like freezes, hot temperature, driver installation, etc. Do you have any of these? These remind me of my old one. :(

ty,

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ANT if replying by e-mail.

I have heard some bad opinions of the Belkin USB devices but I cant say that mine has had any of the problems. YMMV

Jimmie

Thanks.

Just out of curiosity, if you like the previous hawking product,why did you look at everything *BUT* the replacement/newer version (supports N now too), which I got when my old one got stepped on and I had to get a new one....bought it online and had it shipped to my door.... ps they are at

Did you see the reasons I posted earlier? "However, I was unhappy that it got hot, Envara got bought out by Intel, no more support by the companies, no recent driver updates, can't use it in Linux and Mac OS X, etc." Did the newer model fix all of these?

Appears to, ie different chipset/manufacturer, new, dual antenna, and supports N now.... you know what you want/need fraid I don't, just know what I need/use (I travel in my RV/great for aiming out the window at the office for wifi) , have you looked? (link left in the text above, for technical specs)... Just curious if you even considered it instead of the ones you listed above, you seemed to look at anything else and not consider something that is no longer because of from some problems with an old no longer made model.... At any rate, not pushng it, I don't sell em, just a suggestion, thought I'd offer it....

Based on the specifications, it doesn't support other OS' beside Windows. :(

Just curious. How long is its USB cable? The old one had a short cable and I couldn't place it far and higher up to get better signals. :(

Last year I purchased some Engenius high power USB adapters on eBay which have removable diversity antennas, with the intention on extending the length of the coax, but instead I had good luck extending the USB cable to twenty-five feet and mounting the adapter itself at a high point. This approach has worked well at a neighbor's site for more than a year.

Michael

Michael, is this the one --

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ANT if replying by e-mail.

I have been using a linksys wrt54gs router configured in the client mode for the last few weeks to replace a wireless adapter. These are connected to your computer via LAN connection and does nt care what operating system you are using. You have to use it with third party software to get the client mode as the origonal Linksys software doesnt support CLIENT mode. You can add high gain antennas or locate the router hundreds of feet away from your computer. Upgradding to the free DD-WRT software is as simple as a Linksys firmware upgrade.

I suggest further reading at the DD-WRT web page. This is truly the best adapter I have ever used.

BTW: Termidor takes care of both termites and ants.

Jimmie

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes: (snip)

FWIW I use TRENDnet TEW-450APB units - the firmware supports client mode out of the box.

Mark

Has a 3 footer on it, I use two 12 ft extensions to go to the RV window (so it can be up to 27 ft away), have no clue what the theoretcal max is, but the RV is sort of small, and that was long enough, worked good for running out the window and up to the roof too(12 feet above the ground, good reception!)

Hi Mark, I started to buy one of these because it supported CLIENT MODE out of the box but some of the reviews I read turned me off on it. I understand YMMV but almost all the reviews on the Linksys router/DD- WRT software combo was positive.Thats when I started to explore the WRT54 idea since I already had 2 of them. These work great and I was lucky enough to buy a couple more at Goodwill for a little over $3 a piece. Everything at home is now on one of these routers

One of the features I especially like about the WRT54s is that you can readily connect an after market antenna to them. Can you do this with the TEW-450APB ? I have built a couple of simple replacement antenas and found that some very simple gain antennas can have a very high impact on the router's performance. Also much info and help to set it up was available here and on the DD-WRT forum.

Jimmie

Interesting. The router is not so small to be portable and easily switch between computers (including laptops/notebooks).

And I assume it gets power from USB port, and not its own power cable. I was told that using extended USB cable can result lack of power to the device.

(snip)

They've worked well for me but, indeed, YMMV. I did see one XP user who couldn't associate with one (though other XP users could); I don't know what the problem was. And I have maybe a couple of times power-cycled one because it lost the connection, but that hasn't happened often enough for me to build up any kind of pattern of failure.

Yeah, it's hard to go wrong with that. I used to use OpenWRT for a wireless bridge and that was good if a little atrociously documented.

Wow, that's lucky! (-:

The antenna certainly unscrews, but I'm afraid I don't know if the connector is a common one that would easily fit other antennas. I suppose it'd be cheaper for the manufacturer to buy standard connectors though.

Mark

It was a dual- antenna (diversity) 802.11b high power adapter (250mw advertised) and I have misplaced the docs and can't get at the adapter at the neighbors at the moment. There are lots of aftermarket antennas to try, but I had intended just to use the stock antennas on longer lengths of coax, but decided to lengthen the USB cable instead, with good results.

Michael

Yes, it gets the power from the USB port, and usually no problem powering it, however I did get one thing (a light that plugs into the usb port to shine on the keyboard so I can work in the dark, thst specific device seems to eat more powe thsn the port can supply.. if i don'y use it, it works fine, whem i do, it doesn't.. solution - leave it unplugged and turn the lights on)