Wireless Range

[JJDinsay]

Regarding the range for certain types of routers - is that vertical only. Is range different when considering I am 50 feet away from an access point down the hall on the same floor. Or if I'm 50 feet away from an access point 4 floors up.

thanks,

Jeb

[sillyfools]

Hi Jeb,

It depends on the type of antenna. Most AP's have an adjustable antenna that you can turn in order to get the best reception. Some (f.e. Dlink) also come with the possibility to add an external antenna.

It all depends on the amount of space (or rather read concrete) it has to go through.

Consider this:

If you have 2 rooms. Room A has your AP, Room B has your laptop or whatever device you want to connect wireless to.

Let's consider that the distance between the two devices is 40 ft.

in case 1: you have the ap sitting next to the wall in room a and the other device 40 ft away in room b just in front of the place where the first device is. the signal will travel through maybe one ft of wall and 49 ft of air so the reception will be very good.

in case 2: the first device is sitting at the same spot in room A but you have your second device in room B, right next to the wall, but still 50 ft away, ... the distance will still be the same, but now it will have to travel through maybe 49 ft of concrete and 1 ft of air because the straight path between them is blocked with the long end of the wall.

So... It all depends on the amount of walls, type of material and such.

I had the problem that I had one server room in the house and couldn't get a clear connection less than 25 ft away because of 2 walls.

1) I place an omnidirectional antenna outside (central location on the house) and turned the transmitted power down a bit (you cannot really transmit outside according to thai law :-( ... until CS probably has all the gear to boost wifi itself and the law will change all of a sudden).

2) I replaced the wifi card in the laptop with another one.

My signal now is clear on both floors, outside and inside and working great. You can use a program called Netstumbler to check on you reception quality. The latter solution alone jumped my reception form -50 to -10 db.

I hope this one helps.

Also anyone with experience with wifi, adsl and bridging the "last mile" problem in pattaya/jomtien feel free to contact me.

SF

Regarding the range for certain types of routers - is that vertical only. Is range different when considering I am 50 feet away from an access point down the hall on the same floor. Or if I'm 50 feet away from an access point 4 floors up.

thanks,

Jeb