My wife's uncle uses the usb-WiFi-long-cable approach to good effect in some hotels. (I got a 'WiFi consulting' call from him the other night looking for ways to improve beyond this trick.)
Since it sounds like a laptop in a fixed location, using only a particular AP, this approach could work well. You might need to try several different USB WiFi dongles before you find the 'best' one - the receivers in WiFi cards are *not* created equal! You might look into some of the older cards, as some of them have external antenna connectors on them which (AFAIK) are no longer allowed on WiFi access cards, although people do modify them to add connectors. Another possibility, although more invasive, is to add connectors to the WiFi card that is inside the laptop. It might not even be all that invasive, as it may be possible to plug a cable into an existing socket inside the laptop and route it out the back of the laptop. On some laptops that I've had open, this would not have been difficult, and would have been easily reversible if it didn't work or was no longer needed. You may need to bring *two* cables out, however, if the laptop has a space-diverse pair of antennas in it (common now). - Richard [ Oh - and don't do the 1 watt amp - remember that 2.45GHz is a 'water line', and that people are mostly water! It's a particularly bad frequency to apply the 'more is more!' principle to, unless you can guarantee that no human or other desirable life form is going to get in front of the antenna. Also, it isn't particularly helpful unless you can install an amplifier at both ends of the link, since the weakest link loses. I'm a ham radio operator - trust me, a better antenna or antenna placement will get you much further than cranking up the power - the ham adage is: If you can't hear 'em, you can't work em! ] Joseph Kern wrote: > Great to hear! I'll be doing some testing before I send it downrange. > Since I won't be there for setup, it would be nice to send an ez > reflector with it, just in case. > > On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Jon Meek <mee...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> There is a pretty good chance that the supplied 7 dBi antenna will do >> the job, but it is often fun to build antennas. That exact >> wifi-link.com combination solved a problem that one of my friends had. >> >> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 8:48 PM, Joseph Kern <joseph.a.k...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Wow, the response has been overwhelming, thanks for all of the info and >>> links! >>> >>> It's coming down to this: >>> http://www.wifi-link.com/product.php?action=product&class1_id=602&class2_id=604&class3_id=605&product_id=1413 >>> >>> With a longer USB cable (16ft) , and one of these >>> http://freeantennas.com/ that I'll make. >>> >>> Thanks again for all the support! I'll let you know how it goes. >>> >>> --Joseph Kern >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Lopsanj mailing list >>> lops...@lopsanj.org >>> http://lopsanj.org/mailman/listinfo/lopsanj >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Lopsanj mailing list >> lops...@lopsanj.org >> http://lopsanj.org/mailman/listinfo/lopsanj >> >> > _______________________________________________ > sage-members mailing list > sage-memb...@mailman.sage.org > http://mailman.sage.org/mailman/listinfo/sage-members > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
