Increase Wifi Hot Spot Reception
Going to start camping every other week next summer. I plan to work from my camp site and will need internet access on my laptop.There is a Sprint Hot spot tower not far from the camp ground.I used to...
Forum Discussion
I guess I am confused - not a difficult thing.
My thought is that the Sprint hotspot is cell phone?
But I guess that some cell carriers are now transmitting Wi-Fi from their cell towers, and if that is the case, then a external Wi-Fi antenna will help get a better and much stronger signal.
However if it is a cell signal, and the phone is changing that to wi-fi hot spot for just your computers, then the Wi-Fi antenna will not receive anything. Also a cell signal is 1 watt or so, and designed to NOT exceed over about 5 mile range, thus the need for more cell towers, and voter repeaters. (Imangine the number of cars and cell phones in Long Beach CA, with upwards of 150,000 residents within 25 square miles, and living just 5 miles from a cell tower.) Long Beach is 7 miles square and about 450,000 residents, if they had a range greater than 2 miles, a cell tower would be picking up way more than 5,000 signals at once!
Wi-Fi is similar, where personal computers in all the homes within a few miles would crowd the radio waves if they could transmit more than about 1,000 feet. Wi-Fi should be limited to about 1,500 maximum range. That is why I am guessing that you are using cell tower to get the signal to a phone type receiver, that will then transmit the actual information to your computer by wi-fi signal.
You could probably understand what would happen if 50,000 residents of a town like Long Beach would all get on a CB radio at the same time, and tried to talk to each other! However they do this successfully with cell phones all the time!
Good luck,
Fred.
My thought is that the Sprint hotspot is cell phone?
But I guess that some cell carriers are now transmitting Wi-Fi from their cell towers, and if that is the case, then a external Wi-Fi antenna will help get a better and much stronger signal.
However if it is a cell signal, and the phone is changing that to wi-fi hot spot for just your computers, then the Wi-Fi antenna will not receive anything. Also a cell signal is 1 watt or so, and designed to NOT exceed over about 5 mile range, thus the need for more cell towers, and voter repeaters. (Imangine the number of cars and cell phones in Long Beach CA, with upwards of 150,000 residents within 25 square miles, and living just 5 miles from a cell tower.) Long Beach is 7 miles square and about 450,000 residents, if they had a range greater than 2 miles, a cell tower would be picking up way more than 5,000 signals at once!
Wi-Fi is similar, where personal computers in all the homes within a few miles would crowd the radio waves if they could transmit more than about 1,000 feet. Wi-Fi should be limited to about 1,500 maximum range. That is why I am guessing that you are using cell tower to get the signal to a phone type receiver, that will then transmit the actual information to your computer by wi-fi signal.
You could probably understand what would happen if 50,000 residents of a town like Long Beach would all get on a CB radio at the same time, and tried to talk to each other! However they do this successfully with cell phones all the time!
Good luck,
Fred.
