USB vs PCI Card

Agreed. I wasn't thinking of the USB radios with the 1/4 wave "tilt-up" antennas. They're considerably better on antenna gain than the mini-dongle or whatever devices with the PIFA circuit board antenna. However, I've noticed that the radio portion of these larger USB radios are the same as the mini-dongles. Only the package and the antennas are different.

Retch. Depends on what's in the wall. If there are metal studs in the wall, or a masonry wall full of water, methinks it wouldn't work too well. However, it's easy enough to shove a Styrofoam or cardboard spacer between the dongle and the wall to get some separation.

One of my neighbors uses a WUSB54 on her desktop and a DWL-120 on her laptop to connect to the neighborhood wireless LAN. She has to shoot about 150ft, though a mess of trees, to see the antenna. The WUSB54 is kinda flaky but works well enough. They have to reposition the antenna when the trees move around.

The DWL-120 is a lost cause. It looks through the same window but only sometimes makes a connection. I bought 5 of these at $15 and have had range and sensitivity problems with all of them. I sacrificed one and installed an SMA connector in place of the PIFA antenna. With an external antenna, it worked better but not great. I'm not sure if I got the matching correct, so the lousy performance may have been the result of my handiwork instead of something inherent in the design.

I was thinking of the mini-dongle style and for some reason forgot about those. Sorry. The WUSB54G is a tolerable USB radio with a much better antenna than the mini-dongle. Because it can be more easily positioned than the external antenna, it might be a better solution. The antenna is incidentally a 1/4 wave radiator and roughly the same as the stock antenna found on most PCI cards.

I think 3ft is typical. Any more would be too lossy.

Methinks the best compromise would be the Hawkings USB radio, that Clarence Dold mentioned, with the directional panel antenna. You get the long USB cable, easy positioning of the radio, and some directional antenna gain. Directional gain is very useful for reducing unwanted reflections from inside walls and furniture.

The WUSB11 or WUSB54G can also be tweaked for an external antenna:

Per the authors instructions, don't drop it. I would also solder the connector to the ground plane on the bottom of the board, which is why dropping it on the connector probably destroyed the connections.

Is there much difference between these 2 wireless antenna in order to use one over the other? Cost is not important, but reliability is the primary concern.

Thanks

Thanks!

On the Linksys USB module has a thing that looks like and "antenna"....catches a signal anyway!

I notice that many of the cards I have seen have only about a 2ft cable, so you can't get much positioning.

I don't know if I would agree with "very small" for the USB, unless you were talking about a USB mini-dongle. Even that would be superior to a PCI card with the antenna buried behind a PC. The mini-dongle could be stuck to the wall with a bit of tape.

USB "standard" adapter $54.99 has about the same size antenna as WMP54G PCI $49.99 to which you could add any number of antennas, including the "Hawking HAI6SDA Directional 6dBi 2.4GHz Antenna" $39.99 Or you could get the "Hawking Technology HWU54D Hi-Gain Wireless-B USB Adapter" $56.99 which would be a USB client radio built into the 6dBi antenna.

I have a DLink DWL-122 mini-dongle which I have been quite happy with, but it's not available anymore. Some of the mini-dongles are closeouts at $10-20 after rebates, so that's the cheapest way to go. I carry mine with me to set up a quick ad-hoc connection to people's computers that don't have any networking installed.

is the 54g version.

The "Hawking HAI6SDA Directional 6dBi 2.4GHz Antenna"

RG 316 Cable, maybe a meter in length, terminated at RP-SMA. That would be 1.2dB loss.

The Linksys WMP54G shows that it has a 5dBi antenna, so that's a net loss.

The system where I installed the Hawking antenna had a Netgear WG311, which has the tiny antenna. The antenna made an improvement.

I bought three. One, I thought was comparable to an Orinoco, but the one I'm left with now is not as good as the Netgear WG511. I don't know if it was batch variance between the DLinks, or just the time of day when I was doing comparisons.

Neither of those is an antenna.

Barry ===== Home page

Thanks for the website. I have moved the usb unit around, maybe about 3ft from the pc and it has given me a much stronger signal. I have put one of the "Freeantennas" together and have not gotten back to the site to see if that gives me any better service. I am probably trying to get a signal through to much building material!

Thanks for all your help.