Wifi Antennas - Longest Range

[jcisco]

Buy some decent ubiquiti gear, I'm otherwise note getting pulled into this topic

[RichCor]

Buy some decent ubiquiti gear, I'm otherwise note getting pulled into this topic

So we can assume your not a fan of WokFi antennas?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I did something similar to get use a 3BB Hotspot that gave me 10mbps unlimited Internet for 99THB/mo while I stayed in a guest house for 6 months. In my case I just used a USB WiFi stick with a 3dBi external antenna and hung it on the end of two USB extension cables outside a window. The 3BB WiFi HotSpot was about 500-700m from me.

Rich, et al., I've got a very similar situation to what you describe above, and am looking for some equipment recommendations to try to address the issue.

Specifically, I've got True Online cable internet in my 2nd floor home in BKK. And I've got Windows 7 and 10 PCs inside, which also have either built-in wifi cards or external USB stick wifi adapters that get their signal from my True Online wifi router. Only problem is, periodically, the True Online folks fail and their cable internet service goes out, sometimes for a hour or two, sometimes longer.

Right now, I've also got AIS and True wifi signals in my neighborhood, and I have accounts with them giving me access to their wifi. But, with my existing wifi receivers at home that have no external antennas at all, they only rate about 1 bar and not really strong enough to connect to and use on those occasions where my True Online service goes out. My home has some view access up the soi to where the wifi transmitters are, but it's not quite unobstructed.

So ideally, I'd be looking for some kind of USB plug unit that I could attach to my PCs and mount inside the house or on an interior window (though I guess I could also hang outside, if that would help) that would do a better job of picking up the local ISP wifi signals. Anyone got a recommendation on a unit that would serve that purpose???

PS - My main PC is only about 3 feet from the closest window. But, if I wanted to reach to the window/front patio area with the cleanest access to the front of our soi, it would mean running a cable a distance of about 10-15 feet to our front patio area.

Edited October 5, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[RichCor]

<...> I've got True Online cable internet in my 2nd floor home in BKK. And I've got Windows 7 and 10 PCs inside, which also have either built-in wifi cards or external USB stick wifi adapters that get their signal from my True Online wifi router. Only problem is, periodically, the True Online folks fail and their cable internet service goes out, sometimes for a hour or two, sometimes longer.

Right now, I've also got AIS and True wifi signals in my neighborhood, and I have accounts with them giving me access to their wifi. But, with my existing wifi receivers at home that have no external antennas at all, they only rate about 1 bar and not really strong enough to connect to and use on those occasions where my True Online service goes out. My home has some view access up the soi to where the wifi transmitters are, but it's not quite unobstructed.

So ideally, I'd be looking for some kind of USB plug unit that I could attach to my PCs and mount inside the house or on an interior window (though I guess I could also hang outside, if that would help) that would do a better job of picking up the local ISP wifi signals. Anyone got a recommendation on a unit that would serve that purpose???

While my preference to support multiple computers would be a WiFi adapter/router that supported WISP Mode (that could link and login to the WiFi HotSpot service and share its authenticated Internet connection then on a second integrated WiFi Access Point). Unfortunately I have yet to come across a product I really liked that would play well with the login requirements of most WiFi HotSpots.

So that leaves creating individual connections that then require individual subscriptions to the HotSpot service.

My suggestion here would be use a High Gain Directional Antenna USB WiFi adapter. You can easy find/research these squarish looking panel boxes with support stand with a USB cable for use with PCs and MACs on AliExpress.

AliExpress

Panel Directional Antenna WiFi USB Adapter

High Power USB WiFi Adapter ignore the entries with a stick antenna, just focus on the 'flat box' type units with a stand as they'll have a built-in panel high-gain directional 'panel antenna built-in with 60dBi or more gain.

Yes, there is a way to get a PC to 'share' its USB supplied Internet connection over the internal WiFi adapter ... but they really are more of a pain to configure and start up than they are worth. Might as well find a dedicated WiFi HotSpot/WISP device, or build your own WISP Mode router from a Raspberry Pi kit.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

So that leaves creating individual connections that then require individual subscriptions to the HotSpot service.

My suggestion here would be use a High Gain Directional Antenna USB WiFi adapter. You can easy find/research these squarish looking panel boxes with support stand with a USB cable for use with PCs and MACs on AliExpress.

AliExpress

Panel Directional Antenna WiFi USB Adapter

High Power USB WiFi Adapter ignore the entries with a stick antenna, just focus on the 'flat box' type units with a stand as they'll have a built-in panel high-gain directional 'panel antenna built-in with 60dBi or more gain.

Thanks Rich... from a medium techie...

A couple of details things:

--So you're saying skip the majority of these kinds of products that I see shopping online, and those are the ones with the 5 or 9 or 11dBi pole antennas?

--When shopping, then should I automatically be looking for the device/unit with the highest dBi value -- assuming all the other requirements are met?

--I'm a little gun-shy about buying from some Chinese supplier, since I'm assuming one important element to consider is and will be the availability of working Windows 10 compatible device drivers, in order for the unit to be able to be used successfully with my current Windows 10 PCs and those I'll convert in the future. Any thoughts on how to approach that issue, and/or where to best source Win 10 compatible units?

Thanks again...

Edited October 5, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[RichCor]

<...>

A couple of details things:

--So you're saying skip the majority of these kinds of products that I see shopping online, and those are the ones with the 5 or 9 or 11dBi pole antennas?

--When shopping, then should I automatically be looking for the device/unit with the highest dBi value -- assuming all the other requirements are met?

--I'm a little gun-shy about buying from some Chinese supplier, since I'm assuming one important element to consider is and will be the availability of working Windows 10 compatible device drivers, in order for the unit to be able to be used successfully with my current Windows 10 PCs and those I'll convert in the future. Any thoughts on how to approach that issue, and/or where to best source Win 10 compatible units?

Thanks again...

Dipole antennas receive and send electromagnetic energy in a close-to 360° x 360°. Dipoles are great for an Access Point that serves multiple client devices whose relative positions are unknown, and great for portable devices that need to 'connect' while in any orientation.

But when dealing with a distant source, the omnidirectional dipole is wasteful of energy. This is where antenna pattern characteristics (signal propagation) can come into play.

Antennas having a stated dBi above "3" means the send/receive directional EM pattern characteristics have been altered by the antenna shape/design. Instead of listening and sending EM energy in a 360° x 360° direction, the 'shape' or 'design' of the antenna now sends less energy in certain directions so that more energy can be sent in others. So the higher the dBi gain rating the more directional the pattern.

Think of this like the difference between (1) a powered 'naked' flashlight/torch bulb in the open air vs (2) a naked flashlight bulb against a flat mirror vs (3) a flashlight bulb in a mirrored 'reflector' (standard flash/torch light). The first gives little light in all directions, the second gives twice as much light in 1/2 direction, and the third gives a bright light but only in a very confined direction.

A 9dBi dipole, for instance, is a pole antenna with an EM pattern characteristic that favors the horizontal plane over the vertical plane by 3x. A 9dBi dipole antenna will work great in the flat 360° direction (so maybe have greater send/receive on the same floor) but does so at a cost to all the other directions. [a standard 3dBi dipole antenna propagation pattern similar to a very large/fat donut, an 11dBi dipole antenna propagation pattern is similar to a 'flattened' very large/fat donut)

"Directional" antennas will usually have shape/design pattern that will send very little energy in 180° x 180° direction so that more energy is send in the other 180°x180° direction (working similar to a mirror).

Now to answer your question:

With 'directional' antennas, the higher the dBi gain the narrower the antenna's "field of view" or working operation.

A directional antenna with a

10dBi gain may have a Horizontal Beamwidth: 30° and Vertical Beamwidth: 110°

20dBi gain may have a Horizontal Beamwidth: 18° and Vertical Beamwidth: 18°

22dBi gain may have a Horizontal Beamwidth: 10° and Vertical Beamwidth: 12°

24dBi gain parabolic with a Vertical Beamwidth: 7° wide

Not sure how the AliExpress units are coming up with 80dBi patch antenna. Usually you have to involve a sizable parabolic 'collector/reflector' to increase the surface capture area to get above 30dBi.

[jcisco]

Buy some decent ubiquiti gear, I'm otherwise note getting pulled into this topic

So we can assume your not a fan of WokFi antennas?

Are you serious? No I'm not a fan, commercial gear fortunately is going to perform a lot better and will be rather much more consistent in say the event you need two of anything.

[RichCor]

Windows 10, for the most part, will run with Win 7 or Win 8 device drivers.

But then people are reporting issues trying to get USB devices, like printers, working under Windows 10 with Win 7/8/8.1 drivers.

[jcisco]

@Richcor

snip quotes here sorry:

"Dipole antennas receive and send electromagnetic energy in a close-to 360° x 360°. Dipoles are great for an Access Point that serves multiple client devices whose relative positions are unknown, and great for portable devices that need to 'connect' while in any orientation."--@RichCor

That is not correct, Dipole antennas do not perform evenly accross H and E space and radiate more H plane and at 9db, you will find that reception outside of +-25 Degrees about 1.5ish meters of elevation from the antenna at 30 meters to be significantly lower as the been is radiating in circular pattern which is more toroidal in shape.

Which is fine for reception, but at 9db you may have difficulty in transmission within several meters of the antenna and more markedly if there is a large different in elevation even at normal power levels.

You honestly think the tip of the antenna can propagate to the air as much as the long side of a dipole antenna, the point were there is huge resistance to the transfer?

[RichCor]

Which is why I usually equate the propagation signal shape to that of a donut.

Sorry if I am not exact enough... I'm not trying to teach, but just convey an idea (which I still think I did poorly).

[bendejo]

Swearing on Buddha, must remember that one.

It just might catch on, then you'll be hearing bargirls saying things like "I no steal from you, I swear on a stack of Buddhas!"

Seems to be part of a new trend. In Malaysia the (2nd) fellow who claimed he was sodomized by Anwar Ibrahim (the political opposition leader) agreed to take "an oath in the mosque" that the incident was true. I don't know about these things myself, but the articles in the Malaysian press claimed that they never heard of this concept before.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Right now, I've also got AIS and True wifi signals in my neighborhood, and I have accounts with them giving me access to their wifi. But, with my existing wifi receivers at home that have no external antennas at all, they only rate about 1 bar and not really strong enough to connect to and use on those occasions where my True Online service goes out. My home has some view access up the soi to where the wifi transmitters are, but it's not quite unobstructed.

So ideally, I'd be looking for some kind of USB plug unit that I could attach to my PCs and mount inside the house or on an interior window (though I guess I could also hang outside, if that would help) that would do a better job of picking up the local ISP wifi signals. Anyone got a recommendation on a unit that would serve that purpose???

So, now that we've had these scientific discussions, anyone want to hazard a reasonable recommendation on what general area of dBi value I ought to be looking for in a new wifi antenna to best accomplish the intended purpose above?

PS - For this particular purpose, I'd ONLY need this wifi to be able to pick up the local True and/or AIS wifi signals in the event of an emergency (as in True's cable wifi to my house periodically going down). The PC I'd be connecting this wifi antenna to normally is served by True internet via ethernet, and doesn't rely on wifi for its normal connection.

[RichCor]

If the source WiFi Access Point is within a few hundred meters then look for a device using a directional antenna with 9 - 18 dBi.

I would think any higher gain and you'd be getting into a larger antenna (larger surface area for capture/reflection), and/or an antenna having a tighter focal area that would be like looking through a monocular telescope while trying to find your car keys.

WiFi signals do penetrate though objects, though some signal loss occurs through absorption or reflection/deflection, so some obstruction can be tolerated. Higher/clearer signals will occur as fewer obstacles/obstructions are encountered, with the preferred being direct line-of-sight. Though you may find the USB directional WiFi works just as well while inside your residence just pointing towards the source signal.

[jcisco]

Right now, I've also got AIS and True wifi signals in my neighborhood, and I have accounts with them giving me access to their wifi. But, with my existing wifi receivers at home that have no external antennas at all, they only rate about 1 bar and not really strong enough to connect to and use on those occasions where my True Online service goes out. My home has some view access up the soi to where the wifi transmitters are, but it's not quite unobstructed.

So ideally, I'd be looking for some kind of USB plug unit that I could attach to my PCs and mount inside the house or on an interior window (though I guess I could also hang outside, if that would help) that would do a better job of picking up the local ISP wifi signals. Anyone got a recommendation on a unit that would serve that purpose???

So, now that we've had these scientific discussions, anyone want to hazard a reasonable recommendation on what general area of dBi value I ought to be looking for in a new wifi antenna to best accomplish the intended purpose above?

PS - For this particular purpose, I'd ONLY need this wifi to be able to pick up the local True and/or AIS wifi signals in the event of an emergency (as in True's cable wifi to my house periodically going down). The PC I'd be connecting this wifi antenna to normally is served by True internet via ethernet, and doesn't rely on wifi for its normal connection.

You do not want to judge antenna based on its dBi figure this comparing their antenna against an isotropic reference antenna which which radiates from a single point. Rather than against the standard which is a half wave dipole antenna, which is actually what that db figure is measured against.

So ignore dbi figures they are totally fallacy and cannot be converted to anything believable or useful.

Best thing to buy is a wifi bridge/Access Point / Router that has external antennas or external antenna connectors. Then you set it up in the best location to talk to the wife outside with the best antenna setup you chose, Then you connect that to your existing home network.

This is my experience in thailand with wifi, don't waste your time with USB based external devices, they are inconsistent and hit or miss.

Some tp link gear has good software and plugs so you can play around with getting the best connection.

If you have a internet gateway that supports multiple internet connections you can even automatically setup failover to the wifi.

EDIT:

alternatively go buy an internal wifi card for your PC a decent one, with connections for an antenna. buy some cable and an antenna, and just that out to the windows, painless really.

Edited October 8, 2015 by jcisco

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'm not following your post at all:

--I have an internal N wifi card already that doesn't, unfortunately, have any external antenna connectors.

--I also already have a separate USB Wifi N access stick from Linksys that currently has about a 1 meter USB cord attaching it to the PC .

Both of them already show both the AIS and True wifi hotspots in my neighborhood, but in the current configuration, only about at 1 bar... and not enough for any kind of stable connection.

What I'm indeed trying to identify and decide on is, as you put it, " the best antenna setup you chose." And that's what leads into the discussion about different types of antennas (dipole vs square box type) as well as the companion issue of what power dBi is going to be best for the purpose.

[ryanhull]

I eneded up buying one of these below.... very powerfull and USB with an inbuilt wifi adapter... I more bought it for fun really along with my other tb-link I have to test out ranges and use in hotels and what not. It is a large industrial type thing but very powerful, in bangkok i was picking up 100`s of networks when testing on the balcony....

For those who are struggling in condo`s might be worth getting one and slapping it on your balcony on some sort of pole, it comes with a 10 meter USB lead which is good, I got it from the pantip mall around 2000 bhat I believe... although note it does not work on a mac, well it does but with bodged drivers and sometimes you have to keep reinstalling the software (not really usable on macs) but I tested on my windows machine and installed/worked fine.

See:

[jcisco]

I'm not following your post at all:

--I have an internal N wifi card already that doesn't, unfortunately, have any external antenna connectors.

--I also already have a separate USB Wifi N access stick from Linksys that currently has about a 1 meter USB cord attaching it to the PC .

Both of them already show both the AIS and True wifi hotspots in my neighborhood, but in the current configuration, only about at 1 bar... and not enough for any kind of stable connection.

What I'm indeed trying to identify and decide on is, as you put it, " the best antenna setup you chose." And that's what leads into the discussion about different types of antennas (dipole vs square box type) as well as the companion issue of what power dBi is going to be best for the purpose.

the internal card must have an antenna attached to it? Or is this on a laptop, as if that is the case attaching external antenna is a lot of work and the connectors are tiny and not robust for many cycles.

What antenna you choose comes down to this, are you able to locate the point at which you are trying to talk to, as in the access point. If you can do that it will certainly narrow down the options, I'll see if I can locate a usable radio transmitter database you can search for these base stations, I find them handy in trying to locate where they are actually installed if they are pole or cable network mounted. 7-11 and Familymart are good bets but I find those base stations tend to starve of bandwidth in the past however they may of improved.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Well, I played around a bit today at home with my wifi antenna setup with some interesting results:

Specifically,

A. I went out and bought a 10 inch diameter wire mesh strainer, cut a hole in it, and created a "can-tenna" type device to attach to my USB stick wifi access point.

B. I rustled up a USB extension cord that gave me about 5 ft. additional length away from my PC for placing the USB stick wifi access point closer to an unobstructed window point facing up the soi.

Then I took sample readings of Wifi signal reception strength using the Windows app "inSSIDer" in the various configurations, for the SSIDs .@truemoveH and @TRUEWIFI.

1. Using the extension cord with the USB wifi stick attached to the end and placing it upright in a somewhat unobstructed front window, I got -68 to -74 readings, with lower numbers being the stronger signal.

2. Using my "can-tenna" with the inserted USB wifi stick sitting on my PC desk in the middle of our living room and pointing up the soi, I got levels of -76 to -78.

3. Using the Linksys USB stick alone sitting on its stand on top of my PC desk in the middle of our living room (its normal default placement), I got a level of -82.

4. Using my "can-tenna" with the inserted wifi stick sitting on my PC desk but pointing across the soi (not up the soi), I got levels of -82 to -84.

So clearly, moving my wifi stick via the extension cord alone to point to a more unobstructed view up the soi produced the best improvement, -68-74 vs -82 for the original USB stick location on my PC desk. But I wasn't able to try my "can-tenna" at that same somewhat unobstructed front window location for comparison, since I had no convenient way for now to attach the "can-tenna" contraption to the house window.

What I did notice in monitoring inSSIDer was that the total number of access points my wifi setup could see increased substantially when using the "can-tenna." My Linksys USB stick alone showed about 15 SSIDs. When I added the "can-tenna" to it, the number of visible SSIDs doubled to more than 30. But, the additional ones were all pretty much at the lower end of the signal strength range, so that alone didn't make much of an improvement.

I think my next step is to get a longer USB extension cord, hopefully suitable for wifi purposes, that will enable me to move my USB wifi stick further away to a better location closer to the soi fronting our home and providing a less unobstructed view up the soi in the direction of the True wifi hotspot locations.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Here's what the "can-tenna" looks like:

[thedemon]

Looks like fun!

I played around with a similar concept a few years ago. I have to admit that in the end it wasn't very successful.

Mainly from what I read at the time but also borne out by my amateur experiments I came to the conclusion that you can gain a good signal with the right antenna but the loss from the cable between the antenna and the radio is too great.

If you look at the cheap equipment that is used nowadays by long range wireless connections like TOT Winet you can see that they are a single unit with the WiFi radio and directional antenna encased in plastic and connected via a single PoE LAN cable. The LAN cable can be up to 100M long.

I reckon that with one of those sub $50 devices (in wireless client mode) you might get a pretty solid connection.

[RichCor]

Your spaghetti WiFi contraption is a great and inexpensive method to check out the theoreticals of using directional antenna.

The only difficult part would be trying to determine the correct/usable focal point and aligning it with the internal pcb-based antenna of the USB Stick (wherever it is).

I played with all that about 15 years ago. My best success was placing a WiFi USB stick to the stalk of an unused Ku-Band Dish (placed the LNB opening used to be) and was able to link and communicate standard WiFi signals across 23 miles of ocean.

Nice thing about USB WiFi is that the WiFi is self-contained to the stick, so you only have to make sure the USB maintains data integrity over whatever given length your trying to use (usually limited to 5 meters, but can to 25 meters using a so-called active or signal repeater cable)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I ended up watching a bunch of YouTube videos by folks who had created their own antennas using things like coffee cans and wired strainers. Those didn't deal much with the optimal cable length issue, but they did deal with the proper placement of the wifi stick relative to the surrounding enclosure, and that supposedly varies some depending on the internal design of the particular stick being used.

So, in my case, it was partially a matter of determining whether to stick the wifi stick all the way in, or just half way into the strainer, etc etc, things like that. And then, of course, pointing the stick and surrounding enclosure in the optimal direction for the desired access point.

My main purpose was to just to begin to get some feel for how much of an improvement in signal strength in possible by trying different antenna configurations and placements. So today in my fiddling, I manged to go from -84 with the basic USB stick sitting on my desk to the high -60s by using the 5 foot extension cord to place the stick in a better location window spot.

Neither of those signal strengths are especially usable. But at least it begins to suggest to me that a professional/commercial device on a longer cable placed in a similar location in my home might get to the point of having a usable True hotspot connection as a backup for my home internet.

Edited October 10, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK