Antenna thoughts?

[rahlquist]

Hey yall,

Recently picked up a Netgear R7000 because my linksys E3000 died. The R7000 has worked much better for me range wise than the E3000 ever did, so good that I was able to remove the second WAP at the other end of my house (ASUS RT-N12B1) with only one minor issue and I think just a tiny bit of an increase in antenna sensitivity on the R7000 would finish that off.

The ASUS was installed in my wifes office to provide solid access to wifi for her Eye-Fi card in her camera (takes a lot of pictures for her embroidery business). Right now with the house back to just one wifi source if you stand close to the doorway of her office you get good enough reception that the pictures transfer quickly (this is important so that the fiels transfer before the camera goes into sleep mode).

Does anyone have a suggestion for a reasonable upgrade antenna for the R7000 that may be able to give me the slight increase in sensitivity I need over stock?

Thanks!

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
If you change antenna for higher gain, the radiation pattern may change, so with
new antenna the result is unknown until you try them out. Again gain, radiation angle, pattern interacts each other like see-saw. Moving router position or antenna position
slightly may yield difference.

 

[stevech]

Hey yall,

Recently picked up a Netgear R7000 because my linksys E3000 died. The R7000 has worked much better for me range wise than the E3000 ever did, so good that I was able to remove the second WAP at the other end of my house (ASUS RT-N12B1) with only one minor issue and I think just a tiny bit of an increase in antenna sensitivity on the R7000 would finish that off.

The ASUS was installed in my wifes office to provide solid access to wifi for her Eye-Fi card in her camera (takes a lot of pictures for her embroidery business). Right now with the house back to just one wifi source if you stand close to the doorway of her office you get good enough reception that the pictures transfer quickly (this is important so that the fiels transfer before the camera goes into sleep mode).

Does anyone have a suggestion for a reasonable upgrade antenna for the R7000 that may be able to give me the slight increase in sensitivity I need over stock?

Thanks!

On-router antenna changes make a small difference (if the router has external antennas). Technical: Standard external omni antennas in WiFi are about 2-3 dBi gain. Don't overspend (lots of rip-off antennas for sale), you can get a real 6 dBi or so, maybe a couple more. Size matters in omnis. But a 3 or 5 db improvement is small compared to the typical attenuation from room to room (drywall assumed), which is on the order of 60db.

The only good way to cure this is to put an access point ( AP) in/near the weak signal area. Connect to router via cat5 cable, MoCA or HomePlug (see forum sections on those.).

A WDS repeater can work but is flaky and halves the speed. That's OK if the ISP speed you have is much lower. But WDS is a PITA.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Could try beam forming as well if client card is capable.

 

[rahlquist]

Moving router position or antenna position
slightly may yield difference.

Yeah I put a laptop in the room with the issue, fired up inssider and then went to the office where my router is, connected to the remote laptop via RDP and was able to gain 3 db just by moving the access point so it sits at a more favorable angle and spreading the antennas further.

 

[rahlquist]

On-router antenna changes make a small difference (if the router has external antennas). Technical: Standard external omni antennas in WiFi are about 2-3 dBi gain. Don't overspend (lots of rip-off antennas for sale), you can get a real 6 dBi or so, maybe a couple more. Size matters in omnis. But a 3 or 5 db improvement is small compared to the typical attenuation from room to room (drywall assumed), which is on the order of 60db.

The only good way to cure this is to put an access point ( AP) in/near the weak signal area. Connect to router via cat5 cable, MoCA or HomePlug (see forum sections on those.).

A WDS repeater can work but is flaky and halves the speed. That's OK if the ISP speed you have is much lower. But WDS is a PITA.

Yeah I have heard quite a bit of hate on WDS. So I will pass on that. I did originally have the ASUS I mentioned in the first post in that room, connected via a DECA/MOCA adapter into the directv cable backbone in my house. It worked but I think having 2 different 2.4ghz networks in my house was also causing some issues with the wifes laptop, it seems much more stable now that I am down to one, just for some reason that room occasionally gets cruddy reception. It could be interference from the neighbors, I can also look out my window and see cell tower and I am less than 450 feet from one of the busiest interstates in the south east.

Yes you guessed right on the construction, sheetrock, wood stud, etc.

I figured trying a couple larger antenna couldn't hurt.

 

[rahlquist]

Hi,
Could try beam forming as well if client card is capable.

I wish. The main culprit is the Eye-Fi card in the wifes camera, they are wonderful when they work, but their wifi connections can be flaky at best.

Her laptop is a newish HP Envy with a Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter. I would love to put a newer Intel card in but there were only ever 2 that were allegedly in the BIOS whitelist (Centrino 6235 and 2230) for this model and from what I have read that documentation is wrong and it may only be one (the 2230) model. The other cards on the whitelist are the Ralink RT3290LE Wifi/BT combo card and the Ralink RT5390R and I have never had good luck with Ralink products and I am unsure if any on the whitelist will handle beam forming. I wont go usb dongle because we have tried that before with other laptops for her with no great result. It is a shame but the wifi card in her next laptop will probably have to be my #1 concern.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Yes, that white list. Was loyal IBM(Lenovo) Thinkpad fan, after bricking and reviving at a cost playing with BIOS to get around the White list, I switched to ASUS ROG. It takes any card w/o any issues. Last night I installed Intel 7260-AC card replacing 6235 to try
AC mode. I am sort of in luck covering every thing in the house with just a router. Maybe
you should ask around at HP user forum. BTW, I have one USB dual band Ralink stick which works surprisingly well particularly with Linux. My wife's new Samsung pocket camera has WiFi, seems to work pretty good.

 

[rahlquist]

Maybe
you should ask around at HP user forum.

Thats where I found out the service manual was wrong, and the support drone manning the forums kept saying that it was right, but peoples testing prived him incorrect.

BTW, I have one USB dual band Ralink stick which works surprisingly well particularly with Linux. My wife's new Samsung pocket camera has WiFi, seems to work pretty good.

Yeah I went ahead and ordered a RALINK RT3290 today to see if it fares any better.

 

[sfx2000]

If I recall, the Eye-Fi is an embedded WiFi client on an SD card, including the antenna on the card itself - bury it inside a nice camera, and those WiFi waves are working very hard to punch out.

Putting more antenna on the AP isn't going to really help much - yes, more signal, but also more noise...

Might consider putting a pocket repeater nearby when shooting - the Eye-Fi itself doesn't use very much bandwidth... and it's tx/rx levels and sensitivity are much lower than what one finds with a SmartPhone much less a laptop.

 

[KGB7]

Install DD-WRT on to ASUS RT-N12B1 and set it up as a Repeater. Then have the camera connect to the ASUS RT-N12B1.

 

[azazel1024]

Thats where I found out the service manual was wrong, and the support drone manning the forums kept saying that it was right, but peoples testing prived him incorrect.


Yeah I went ahead and ordered a RALINK RT3290 today to see if it fares any better.

You might get lucky. I have a 2 year old HP Envy 4t...so I assumed it had BIOS white listing as well.

Nope. I swapped in an old Intel 1000 card, which is NOT on the manual list. It worked perfectly. So I bought an Intel 7260AC. Dropped it in, works GREAT!.

For the $30 odd it costs, I figure it doesn't hurt to try it out. It might well work in yours. I suspect HP might have dropped the BIOS whitelisting in the last couple of years, but I have no way to prove that other than my own experience and anecdotal evidence of a couple of other HP owners with newer laptops (made in the last 1-2 years) who successfully swapped in cards that were never offered for their HP laptop model.

 

[rahlquist]

You might get lucky.

Maybe I will try the ac card. I had already tried an Intel 2300 and a 6235 and neither worked for me. I think the 2300 booted but the 6235 would not.

 

[azazel1024]

If it won't boot, odds are good a 7260ac probably won't, but if you can get one with a good return policy, it might be worth trying out if it only costs you a couple of bucks if it doesn't work.