A friend of mine has a lake 'cottage' which is a manufactured/mobile home on pontoons at a compound with a clubhouse, RV park, marina, campgrounds, etc. The houseboat is some 75 meters from the facility clubhouse which is equipped with fiberoptic access to the internet and some kind of wifi router and antenna signal distribution of unknown type.
Inside his houseboat.he has problems with weak signal and poor thru'put to his Dell laptop LT. He does OK when he's at the clubhouse with it and others do OK in their similar hosueboats with their various LTs such as Macs. I don't know the modelno of his Dell, but it doesn't have any kind of external antenna connector for its builtin wireless.
I've had good luck around my house with cheap Airlink devices which I've bought on sale at Fry's, and I am currently using an (Airlink) AP421W ethernet wired to my AR325W router to extend my LAN's wireless range to a roller unit with two KVMed computers which are using wireless PCI cards.
So, I recently bought a AP431W which was on sale at Fry's to give/help him with his problem by using it as a repeater, but I think I want to enhance it before traveling to visit him there on the lake to help him install and configure it.
My idea is to get a longer/taller omni antenna to replace its 4" and to enhance that with a reflector which is aimed at the clubhouse signal source. Here's a picture^1 of a simple reflector which has been slipped onto a taller omni antenna than the one which comes with the AP431W. I'm looking for a source for such a reflector which hopefully comes complete with taller antenna replacement. I'm also looking for any input here about ideas to contradict or support my notion for the AP431W as a repeater. This Airlink gizmo only cost $18 on sale.
The reason I'm trying to go with a repeater rather than something unidirectional is because he wants to be able to use the LT wirelessly from one end to the other of the houseboat, including its decks front and rear. By using an omni which is reflector enhanced toward the clubhouse to acquire the signal, that same omni can transmit radiate thru-out the houseboat with the same antenna with the directional reflector.
^1