Any point to using better antennas in an apartment?

[coreyinoz]

Hi,

I have a very small wireless network. I'm trying to cover a distance of about 8 feet in the same room if you can believe it. Trust me that I'd be using ethernet if I could...

Anyway here's the gear;

Asus RT-N16 running Tomato and/or DD-WRT depending on the day of the week
TP-Link WN951N PCI WiFi N card

The problem? I get great signal as you'd expect across only 8 feet in the same room (about -45). However, my signal quality sucks. Tomato reports it in the high 20's to low 30's, while DD-WRT reports it in the low 50's. Win 7 reports 3-4 bars normally.

I'm picking up 30+ competing AP's, and they are nicely distrubuted across all of the channels. I've tried changing channels without much success.

My question is if an upgraded antenna on the PCI card would offer any opportunity to help? The TP-Link comes with puny 2db antennas, and I've read good reviews on newegg and NCIX of TP-Links 8db antenna on the 10cm leader cord (taking the antenna away from the tower and ground).

Will an antenna help me at all, or will it just help pick up more signal and more noise?

Thanks,

coreyinoz

 

[tipstir]

Hi,

I have a very small wireless network. I'm trying to cover a distance of about 8 feet in the same room if you can believe it. Trust me that I'd be using ethernet if I could...

Anyway here's the gear;

Asus RT-N16 running Tomato and/or DD-WRT depending on the day of the week
TP-Link WN951N PCI WiFi N card

The problem? I get great signal as you'd expect across only 8 feet in the same room (about -45). However, my signal quality sucks. Tomato reports it in the high 20's to low 30's, while DD-WRT reports it in the low 50's. Win 7 reports 3-4 bars normally.

I'm picking up 30+ competing AP's, and they are nicely distrubuted across all of the channels. I've tried changing channels without much success.

My question is if an upgraded antenna on the PCI card would offer any opportunity to help? The TP-Link comes with puny 2db antennas, and I've read good reviews on newegg and NCIX of TP-Links 8db antenna on the 10cm leader cord (taking the antenna away from the tower and ground).

Will an antenna help me at all, or will it just help pick up more signal and more noise?

Thanks,

coreyinoz

It could give you additional 10% in signal strength or it could not even see any gain. You would be the only judge. I had swapped out 3x 3 dBi for 3x 5dBi huge difference and I got 10% gain.

You need to find that perfect spot where the interference is lower.

 

[icerabbit]

If the computer and/or other gear is blocking the line of sight between the wireless systems (your computer is buried under a desk) look into an antenna kit with 3ft or so extension cables, so you can bring the antennas up onto the desk. Buried PCI card antennas are often shielded from getting a good signal by the computer they're installed on. Just a bigger or better antenna won,t do much.

Look at improving the line of sight, reducing obstructions and interference, try a single antenna with relocation wire or even a three in one kit, where there's a puck on the desk with 3 antennas and three wires. I researched such a kit once for someone.

 

[stevech]

Or put a WiFi USB adapter on the PC. Get a cheap USB extension cord. Place the USB adapter more optimally. Unlike an antenna's coax, the length of the USB cable(s) doesn't affect signal strengths.

 

[coreyinoz]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. The TP-Link 8db antenna on 3 feet of cord is only $16, and has great reviews at newegg.

Indeed my PC tower is backed up right against the wall, facing away from the router. I'll try one of the antennas and see what happens.

It's just too bad that I have all these other AP's to compete with. Damn urban living!

coreyinoz

 

[thiggins]

don't get hung up on what your signal quality reading is. What is the problem that you are experiencing? Low throughput? Disconnects?

I'd say you are a perfect candidate for 5 GHz (short distance, same room, crowded 2.4 GHz band).

 

[jerryk]

If it is the same room why can't you use Ethernet cable?

 

[coreyinoz]

don't get hung up on what your signal quality reading is. What is the problem that you are experiencing? Low throughput? Disconnects?

I'd say you are a perfect candidate for 5 GHz (short distance, same room, crowded 2.4 GHz band).

Both kind of... I probably should have done more reading re: 5Ghz before buying the Asus RT-N16. I just really liked the rest of the feature set and thought I'd be good because of my short distance.

Re: throughput - on cat5e I was getting 9.9MB/s FTP'ing to my xbox360 hard drive. On WiFi with signal quality at 30%, I average about 3MB/s. By playing with the line of sight of the router, I'm able to get signal quality up to 50% and FTP speeds up to ~5MB/s.

I was just hoping to go further up that linear progression.

@jerryk - the router and PC are kitty corner in a decent size living room, interupted by doorways and/or a fireplace no matter which way I go around the horn. Sure I could run cable around the entire room, but I'm not keen on cabling around the entire perimeter of the one nice room in my pad!

 

[teknojnky]

~5mbs is very good for wireless (g at least), its unlikely any antennas will help improve that.

going to wireless N can improve things greatly tho.

 

[coreyinoz]

~5mbs is very good for wireless (g at least), its unlikely any antennas will help improve that.

going to wireless N can improve things greatly tho.

As per above, router and card are both N

 

[teknojnky]

yes but are you actually using N/5ghz?

if your getting 'crowded' channels, it sounds like your still on the 2.4 G bands and thus g speeds.

what encryption are you using? if your not using WPA2 then its likely you will stuck at G speeds.

 

[stevech]

Don't confuse having a lot of detected SSIDs nearby with crowded, overloaded channels. Only the people doing a lot of streaming video or big constant file transfers are a concern. But you need the right software tool to determine how "busy" each SSID is, and how that varies over time.

5.8GHz 802.11a and some products' 5.8GHz 11n is nice. Not as crowded. But first decide if you really have an intractable problem in 2.4GHz's channels (3).