Disclaimer: testmy.net and its mods are not responsible for any damage to hardware, software, systems, or bodily harm if you decided to attempt this. We strongly recommend that you attempt this only if you are confident in your computer skills and have some time to troubleshoot. As always, make sure that you make the propper backups before making any major system changes.

Who is this guide for:

For people that have wireless coverage in your house but you is too far from the main antenna or for some unknown reason you are not getting a good reception.

How we are going to achieve improving you Wireless reception:

The best thing you can do to extend the range of your WiFi signal is to add an external antenna with stronger gain to your system.

"Gain" defined from www.dictionary.com is

Quote from: dictionary

Electronics. An increase in signal power, voltage, or current by an amplifier,
expressed as the ratio of output to input. Also called amplification.

Gain is term used for measuring of increase in signal power, described in
decibels (dB). Gain is typically measured in dBi (decibels relative to isotropic
radiator) and is based on decibels. The higher the dBi measurement, the higher
the power level of the antenna.[/quote

Requirements:

- A network card which enables expansion for an External Antenna.
- An external Antenna
- Right connection cables between the antenna and network card
- NetStumbler client
- About 30-60 minutes

Possible show stoppers:

If you have a laptop with an internal network card which is very common forget about it, you can’t physically boost your reception and because the internal card is most probably an Intel Wireless one you will not even be able to boost it with software. If you have a Centrino based notebook, meaning it has the Centrino sticker, then you are going to have the Intel Pro Wireless network adaptor. There are three separate items that a computer must have to be certified by Intel and receive the Centrino classification. They are the Processor, WiFi Card, and the Chipset.

Types of antennas:

There are two basic types of antennas: directional and omni-directional. Directional antennas, primarily used in point-to-point networks, concentrate the waves in one direction much like a flashlight concentrates light in a narrow beam, in a "conical" radiation pattern. Directional antennas include yagi, dish, panel, and sector. Omni-directional antennas (omni is a prefix meaning "all"), can transmit radio waves in a 360 degree "doughnut" radiation pattern. They generally have lower gain than directional antennas.

Procedure:

1) OK so you have gone out and bough a new PCMCIA card for your laptop. Insert the card in your laptop PCMCIA slot.

A few things to consider before hitting the local retail outlets.
Most of what you are going to find at say Bestbuy, Circuitcity, Fry's or other are going to be consumer level products. These are often copies of products that are available to businesses. The only difference is that some features my not be included. For this venture you are going to need a PCMCIA network card for a laptop. About 99% of consumer level cards do not include the option to connect an external antenna. Therefore it is highly recommended that you look online, ask questions, and if possible physically look at the card before you buy it.

2) Installed the new wireless network card with the drivers provided with the card. If you installed it successfully it is showing in your Network Connections.
You notice two Wireless Network Connections; the number 2 in the end is the external card I added on to my laptop.
If you are in doubt which one is which you can do two things, number one hover your mouse over the icon and it will show you like in the picture which network card it is or number two you can right click on the icon go to proprieties and it will also say on the top which network card it is.

So we recommend you disable the network card you don’t want to use just to make things easier for windows.

At this point it is highly recommended that you make sure that you new wireless card's drivers are up to date! This can dramatically improve the signal strength and range of a card! Following the update restart you computer and make sure that the new drivers are running.

3) Now its time to check the network coverage

Download NetStumbler, a free program that scans for wireless Access Points and the Signal to noise ratio, at http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/
Download it and install it just like any other program you have done.
The first time you open the program it will immediately start scanning you don’t have to do a thing.
To see what sort of signal you are getting all you need to do is navigate in the left hand side menu the Channel you want or to the SSID you want to look for. Here is a print screen with two marks of when I just plugged the antenna in, so you see a difference in the GREEN signal is much more stable and consistent allowing you to even have less packet lost or errors.

Now its time to try it with your new antenna
I am sure you are excited with that big huge antenna you bought, if you haven’t yet connected it go ahead and plug it in.

Now recheck the network coverage again and you should experience the same effect I described earlier on when I showed you a picture of NetStumbler.
What do you verify? Surprise with a massive antenna with massive dBi you can now see all your neighbors wireless as well as a strong signal from your own network.

Attention:

1) Make sure you buy an antenna that operates on the correct frequency for your wireless network.
Wireless Standard Speed Frequency
802.11b 11Mbps 2.4GHz
802.11g 54Mbps 2.4GHz
802.11a 54Mbps 5GHz

2) Make sure you got all cable connection type fit into each other
Here are some examples of the most common connectors found on the wireless world:
MCX to N Male Pigtail
-Pictured above is a pigtail with an "N" connector (the large one) on one end and a "MCX" connector (the small one) on the other end. Connects a wifi device to an antenna.
-Mainly used with Orinoco, Avaya, Lucent, Proxim, Agere, Dell and other brands

RPSMA Connector (below) - Mainly used with Netgear Access Points, Linksys WET11, PCI cards and others

RPTNC Connector (below) - typically used with Linksys Access Points and others

MMCX to N Male Pigtail (below) - used by Senao, Cisco and others

Also if you can’t afford to buy a wicked massive antenna then you can always build you own antenna. Here is a link to a guide on how to build your own antenna http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html
Also a good guide is this guide from WiFi-toys click here to check out the PDF