Since moving in to our new house I’m finding that my wireless Internet range seems a bit short. Using a D-Link DI-624, Extreme G, D-Link wireless card in my notebook. Router is located upstairs in bedroom, but I find that when I sit on the back deck or front porch I get a weaker than expected (and often 0) signal.
There is no easy way to run a cable from the router downstairs, so I’m trying to avoid running a cable to another broadcast extender type box downstairs. Is there some other way to boost the signal a bit from the router upstairs?
Jeff, I was having the same troubles. Put a hi-gain antenna on my wireless adapter on the desktop, and then another hi-gain antenna on the router two floors above me.
Bingo. My connection now always says “Excellent” or “Very Good”.
All the difference in the world, cost me about 50 bucks.
Pretty much any decent computer shop will sell them. BB and CompUSA have them for about $30 or so (depending on the sale of the week). Just make sure the connecters match. Most will, but it won’t hurt to bring in your old antenna to see.
Ah - one problem , my D-Link notebook wireless card doesn’t seem to be able to accept an add-on antenna. Drat. I’ll still try the antenna for the router.
I’m having a slightly different problem. I will occasionally lose signal strength or connection altogether for no apparent reason. It used to be when someoned picked up a 2.4GHz phone or turned on the microwave that it would drop, but now it’s doing it far more frequently (such that watching TiVO from another TiVO takes an hour to transfer a 30 minute show).
Now, I do have WEP enabled, which creates some inefficiencies, but I’m starting to think that the culprit might be channel collisions. The problem is, I don’t know if such a thing exists =) In my neighbhorhood alone I have 3 other WAPs available at my home, and presumably all are parked on the 802.11b frequency range. Is it possible that, given all are trying to be their own networks, that there are collisions? I had read somewhere that 802.11b has a fixed bandwidth that is divided down by the number of users in an area, but I haven’t looked into it anymore than that.
The easiest thing is just to buy another wireless router than can extend the whole network. You should just be able to plug it in where the singal is weak and then your access there will be fast. The router will get a far better signal to the other router than any adapter.
