Wifi Repeater help
I am looking at various options and hardware for helping pick up wifi from poorly broadcast signals at many parks. I would like to connect an outdoor antenna to an indoor wireless router and be able t...
Forum Discussion
A lot of people do not realize that with external antenna solutions, their biggest problem is cable length. With the Jefatech solution it starts as a Linksys WRT54G, with stock antenna's that have a 2db gain. Take one of those away and add the 8db antenna, and that means you get a 6db improvement from the previous antenna that was on it. Moving the antenna to the roof can help a lot to get a clearer line of sight to the Wireless access point... however... what gets most people is the cable length. Cheap cable can have a signal loss of about 40db per 100 feet, even decent quality "low loss" RG58 or LRM200 have loss just under 20db per 100 feet. This means that if you put a 10 foot cable between the router and the antenna on the roof, you will loose about 4db with the cheap cable and 2db for the better cable. This means that you have lost 2/3 of your gain with the cheap cable and 1/3 with the better stuff. If you run 15' of the cheap stuff you have just lost all of the benefit of the antenna as it will have 6db of loss cancelling out the 6db of gain from the antenna. You can even run into situations where you will have worse signal strength than with the original antenna mounted directly to the router. Also if you use multiple connectors between the router and antenna you can lose about 1db per connector in addition to the cable loss.
The key is if you are going to use an external antenna it is CRITICAL that you mount the router as close on the interior to the location that the antenna will be outside, so you can keep your cable length down.
In my case the antenna is on the Batwing and is about 4' above the roof when extended and the hole is right below it, adding about a foot for a drip loop and for the antenna to turn. I put the router on a shelf at the ceiling right under the antenna and 6' RG58 cable barely covers it. This gives about 15' of height to clear most trailers between me an the access point and about 4-5db gain.
The key is if you are going to use an external antenna it is CRITICAL that you mount the router as close on the interior to the location that the antenna will be outside, so you can keep your cable length down.
In my case the antenna is on the Batwing and is about 4' above the roof when extended and the hole is right below it, adding about a foot for a drip loop and for the antenna to turn. I put the router on a shelf at the ceiling right under the antenna and 6' RG58 cable barely covers it. This gives about 15' of height to clear most trailers between me an the access point and about 4-5db gain.
