Wireless Signal Boosters - questions about wireless signal boosters?

questions about wireless signal boosters?

i get a wireless signal from someone is my neighbor hood, its a weak signal but it works. if i get a signal booster can that boost the signal from my neighbor?

Public Comments

Maybe. Maybe not. A problem with using a signal booster is that it also amplifies the noise. So, you may end up with a stronger signal but your signal-to-noise ratio stays the same. In the presence of noise, you'll still get the same throughput you're currently getting with a weak signal. A better approach is to use a directional antenna. This helps eliminate noise (from portable phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, other wireless networks, thermal noise, etc.) from your system because these noise sources won't be in the antenna's field. The "Cantenna" is popular with wifi hackers and wardrivers, it gives 12 dBi gain (15.8 times the unamplified signal). http://www.cantenna.com/ There's lots of room to play with wifi. I built a long range wifi setup with these parts: http://www.wlanparts.com/product/GD24-15 http://www.wlanparts.com/product/NL2511CDPLUSEXT2 http://www.wlanparts.com/product/MMCXNM24 It has double the gain of the Cantenna but is still small enough to be portable and reasonably inconspicuous. I mounted the antenna on a camera tripod and pointed it out an upstairs window. With this setup, I am able to pick up over 30 WLANs in my neighborhood. These are within a half-mile to a mile range. When designing your system, be sure to keep your cables short. With some cables, you'll lose 1 dB or more per meter. Compare this with 0.22 dB per meter for higher quality cable such as LMR-400-DB (see specifications in "sources"). If you're short on cash, you can make a homemade cantenna. With a little more "metal bending", you can modify the feed of a discarded parabolic Dish or DirecTV antenna. You can find directions for these projects on the web. Okay, so I'm a little geeky -- doing one mile wifi. ;) These guys are over the top. They did 125 miles! http://pasadena.net/shootout05/ Have fun!