How to expand mu wifi range???

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Originally Posted by Terryl

I had two of these setups pointing at each other, one was a dual antenna type router, the other was a PC with the USB extension cables, they had line of sight, so there was no problems with reception.

You got to remember that WIFI is a two way street, you can put up a very big antenna to receive the signals, but you need to get your signal back to the other end, most of these add on high gain antennas have too much signal loss coming back in from the device in your computer.

Most WIFI devices are only 200 to 600 milli watts at best, and that is right at the output of the device, the thin coax used is very lossey at 2.5 or 5 GHz and anything over 10 feet is a waist of any increase of gain provided by any add on antenna.

This is why I used the Alpha mounted in a water tight box as close to the antenna as possible, you also need to have direct line of sight for the best reception, stuff like buildings, trees and TV antennas in the way will knock the signals down to nothing.

This is why it's best to mount it as high as you can.

The setups I used had CAT5/6 USB to LAN interfaces, also POE for running the Alpha in the WT box, this way the loss was kept to a minimum, one setup I even used a DC powered two port USB hub, this was powered at the WT box, this way the USB Alpha interface had plenty of juice to run at the maximum power, this way I didn't need the POE injector in the setup.

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Ok, I can also mount the Alfa in a WT box up at the antenna so the only coax is the built-in 3' cable from the Yagi to the alfa, then I have a 20' (special) usb from the alfa to my computer. Do you think the 20' USB cable will still supply the 2wats of power up to the Alfa? Hopefully it will do the job, I will test the setup with both the Yagi and my 6" x 6" panel antenna and post my results. I'm in a bi-level house so I can mount the antenna about 30' in the air and go over top most obstacles. What are you using for your wifi connection manager on your computer? I'm finding I need some 3rd party software to show all the AP's that I'm trying to connect too, the stock windows 7 wifi manager only shows the top 15 or-so ap's.

Try this one.

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http://www.netsetman.com/en/wifi-wlan-manager

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And can you use a shorter cable then the 3 footer???

The shorter the better.

My ISP uses a 5 GHz WIFI antenna with the modem built right into the antenna.

And there is another way to do this, you use one of the Hawking Technology range extenders mounted outside, all it needs is power, you can connect the Yagi antenna to one of it's antenna ports, and your set, it picks up your WIFI through one antenna and repeats it to the access point through the Yagi antenna.

Code:

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https://hawkingtech.com/product/howabn1/

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Terryl

Try this one.

Code:

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http://www.netsetman.com/en/wifi-wlan-manager

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And can you use a shorter cable then the 3 footer???

The shorter the better.

My ISP uses a 5 GHz WIFI antenna with the modem built right into the antenna.

And there is another way to do this, you use one of the Hawking Technology range extenders mounted outside, all it needs is power, you can connect the Yagi antenna to one of it's antenna ports, and your set, it picks up your WIFI through one antenna and repeats it to the access point through the Yagi antenna.

Code:

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https://hawkingtech.com/product/howabn1/

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The 3' cable is built in to the Yagi so I would have to tear it apart to make it shorter, I don't think I want to do that. I have seen those Hawkingtech repeaters but I don't think I want to create a hotspot, I would rather stay hard wired from the antenna right to my pc for now.

Well, I thought I would update my progress. I purchased the Alfa 2watt wifi adapter and connected it to the 23" yagi antenna, put it up on the roof with line-of-site and sadly it never even came close to seeing the hotspot, and it's exactly 0.237 miles away, bummer :(

How did you run/connect the adapter to the yagi???? Explain the setup......

In one application I had to put mine in a water tight box and use a 10 inch cable to get the power needed.

And 1200 feet is nothing for the Alpha unit, you might even not need the yagi, I have one connected to the laptop down in the shop at the bottom of the hill, it's about 1000 feet from the main house, works fine.(when the shop door is up)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Terryl

How did you run/connect the adapter to the yagi???? Explain the setup......

In one application I had to put mine in a water tight box and use a 10 inch cable to get the power needed.

And 1200 feet is nothing for the Alpha unit, you might even not need the yagi, I have one connected to the laptop down in the shop at the bottom of the hill, it's about 1000 feet from the main house, works fine.(when the shop door is up)

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The Yagi antenna has a 3' cable built into it with a sma connector on it that connects direct to the Alfa, then a 5' usb cable from the Alfa to a laptop. That's it, I went up onto the roof with the laptop just to make sure there was no power/signal loss due to cable length but it still didn't work, I even wrapped the 3' yagi cable in about 20 layers of tinfoil just to keep the singal loss down to a minimum but still no-go, I'm at a loss ???

And you loaded the Alpha drivers and the WIFI software that came with it right??

Mine come with a software that will let you see whats around you, try it directly to the laptop and make sure your setting it up right, you should be able to see all the surrounding WIFI devices with the standard antenna that came with the unit.

Test it that way first, then use the yagi, swing it around and see if the connection is secure and you get the same signals, the end of the coax from the yagi is a REVERSE SMA right?? (also called a RP-SMA) There are two types a standard SMA and a reverse SMA, most LAN WIFI devices use the reverse SMA,(RP-SMA) the two don't mix.

http://www.satfix.to/attachment.php?...id=26953&stc=1

You want the RP-SMA

One problem I did run into was that some of the 2 watt Alpha's needed a lot of DC current, some laptops and USB ports would not run it, so I had to go with a 2 way externally powered USB hub to run it.

The sma connections are fine, it does work just not the range I was hoping for, the AP is about a 1/4 mile away and the Yagi/Alfa can't see it. I was wondering about a USB power issue, I know USB ports put out 5v but I don't know how that converts to watts. I am using the drivers and wlan that was on the disc that came with the Alfa.

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Originally Posted by Mavrick

The sma connections are fine, it does work just not the range I was hoping for, the AP is about a 1/4 mile away and the Yagi/Alfa can't see it. I was wondering about a USB power issue, I know USB ports put out 5v but I don't know how that converts to watts. I am using the drivers and wlan that was on the disc that came with the Alfa.

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hxxps://superuser.com/questions/690074/what-is-the-power-output-of-a-usb-port...looks like less than 5 watts.

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Originally Posted by Mavrick

The sma connections are fine, it does work just not the range I was hoping for, the AP is about a 1/4 mile away and the Yagi/Alfa can't see it. I was wondering about a USB power issue, I know USB ports put out 5v but I don't know how that converts to watts. I am using the drivers and wlan that was on the disc that came with the Alfa.

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In the program were you setup the Alpha, there is a power setting, make sure that is set to 100%, and did you set this up at the laptop with the supplied antenna? If so when you did a scan for WIFI channels did you find anything at all???.

Most USB ports can only supply 500 mA of DC current at 5 volts DC, now on some newer computers and laptops there are USB power charging ports, labeled with a lighting bolt.

http://www.satfix.to/attachment.php?...id=26954&stc=1

These ports can supply up to 1 amp at 5 volts, commonly used to charge phones.

One other way to test if it's a DC power problem is to use an externally powered USB hub, this should be able to run the Alpha just fine.

Also make sure you have the right driver as there are 2, see the link below.

Code:

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https://www.alfa.com.tw/products_show.php?pc=34&ps=8

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And more info on a possible DC power problem.

Code:

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http://en.data-alliance.net/alfa-awus036h-power-problem-fix-realtek-rtl8187l-chipset/

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Terryl

In the program were you setup the Alpha, there is a power setting, make sure that is set to 100%, and did you set this up at the laptop with the supplied antenna? If so when you did a scan for WIFI channels did you find anything at all???.

Most USB ports can only supply 500 mA of DC current at 5 volts DC, now on some newer computers and laptops there are USB power charging ports, labeled with a lighting bolt.

http://www.satfix.to/attachment.php?...id=26954&stc=1

These ports can supply up to 1 amp at 5 volts, commonly used to charge phones.

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The only thing on the disc was the drivers for Mac, Windows and Linux, and the Ralink Wlan, there was no program to "set up" the Alfa with a power setting???

How then did you configure it????

There should be a setup program somewhere, is there a little WIFI signal indicator at the bottom right of the screen??

Double click on it and then a setup program should run.

Unfortunately I don't have one around at the moment to help you out with this.

I will go look at the old laptop I used for setting them up.