My company just issued me a laptop with built in wifi. When I took it
home and booted up, I received notification of a wireless signal and if
I wanted to connect.
I did and got a very weak signal, around 6 to 10%.
I am assuming this is a public hotspot because the ssid is brodcasted
and no encryption is used.
The SSID is linksys(common sense says it is a linksys router, right?)
and was wondering if I purchased a linksys repeater, would this work in
increasing my signal strength?
Big assumption. I don't know where you live, but I'd be willing to bet it's a neighbor that didn't know how to secure their network, not exactly the same thing.
Not likely to help enough. A directional antenna would probably help if there's some way of connecting one to your laptop. But with built in wireless, I guess that won't fly. Ed Williams has a product that he sells on eBay that might be of interest to you, I think he calls it the Signal Seeker. It wouldn't hurt to ask whoever owns the router how they feel about you tapping into their network.
davper wrote in news:davper.1m4gca@WiFi-Forum_dot_com:
First off, I wouldn't assume that it is a public hotspot. I would estimate that 75% of the average home wireless network users don't set up any kind of security.
Second, assuming that you have no ethical problems with "stealing" his bandwith, or you get permission, I suspect that the signal is too weak for the off-the-shelf Linsys repeater to work. However, if you can return it, which you can at most places, I would get one and try it out. Couldn't hurt!
The Chairman
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