If you use a wireless N, do you need to put three high gain antennas if you want to extend the range or can you just use one?
- posted
16 years ago
Wireless N and High Gain Antenna
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- posted
16 years ago
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com hath wroth:
Chuckle. All 3 antennas. N works by having slightly different path lengths between each antenna. If the path lengths were identical, you don't get the speed improvment. As far as I can determine, no vendor advertises a Pre-802.11n Draft 2 compatible external antenna system.
Also, note that there are really two radically different types of MIMO mixed together in the Pre-802.11n Draft 2 document. One is "spacial multiplexing" which is what you're thinking of with the 3 antennas. The other is "beam forming" (or is it beam steering?), which has no visible antennas of any kind. The antenna is usually totally enclosed in the AP with no place to attach an external antenna.
Bottom line is that Pre-802.11n Draft 2 is about speed, not range. If you try to screw with it to get more range, it probably won't work.