signal Booster

Google is your friend ...

"Mx" hath wroth:

Viagra. When my signal looses its strength, I reach for the bottle. One pill and my signal goes vertically polarized and operating at maximum strength. The problem is that it doesn't stay up very long and eventually looses its strength.

There are many ways to improve the signal. The best and easiest is to build or buy an external antenna. Antennas will do more for increasing signal levels than any other method. They also reduce interference by picking up less signal from undesired directions. In addition, they improve the signal in both transmit and receive, usually equally.

TMA (tower mounted amplifiers) have a different purpose. They reduce the effects of long coax runs. They're not really intended for range improvement. They increase the signal asymetrically by building an alligator (big mouth, small ears). For a proper link, both ends have to have the same EIRP. That means if you install a power amplifier on one end of the link, you have to do the same on the other. If only on one end, the whole neighborhood can hear the power amplifier, but the access point connected to the amplifier can only hear a short distance.

There are also store and forward repeaters, also known as range extenders. These have problems with speed reduction, interference generation, hardware compatibility, and performance. They do work, but you have to be prepared for an adventure in compatibility and performance. If you go this route, look into routers with WDS features.