Boosting Wireless Signal in Apartment.

Zascar

Hey Guys, I'm fairly new to the whole wireless thing so I hope you can make a few things clearer for me.

I have a Linksys WRK54G. Pretty pleased with it, apart from the fact that the PCI card it came with was hopless - I had to replace it with a Belkin USB adaptor which works perfect. Anyway, it has been working fine, but I'm now having problems with signal strength.

I'm in a small apartment block, on the ground floor. The router is in the room directly above me on the first floor. My PC and the laptop pick up the signal fine in this room and the bedroom nextdoor. However when I bring the laptop into the apartment next door (one room further across, still on ground floor) the signal goes very low, and totally disappears in the room after that. I cannot move the router but want to be able to boost the signal a little so we can still get decent signal in the 2 rooms of the apartment next door.

Can anyone please advise the best/easiest way to do this? I know the signal is passing through quite a few walls but the distance involved is pretty short, maybe 15/20 metres, and I honestly expected a linksys router to provide a stronger signal than that.

So, I've looked on the net and found a few possibilities but not sure which way to go.

This one looks fun, but no idea if it would work... Any recommendations? Or is there some sort of antenna I can buy to give a little boost?

I heard you can increase signal strenth by changing settings in the admin page, can anyone tell me how to do this?

I also heard that upgrading the firmware can help. (currently on version 1.56.01 - Jul 22, 2004). I downloaded the latest version but am reluctant to try it as I'm not sure if it will wipe my settings that are currently on there. It was trickly getting it to work as is and don't want the headache of trying to reconfigure it.

All help much appreciated.
Cheers,
Zascar.

MisterAnarchy

That 10 dBi Corner Reflector Template looks good.
Would work too.
I'm gonna try it.
You should too.

Karoma

The corner reflector would improve performance for you a bit.. I don't know if it'll improve the level which you desire (i.e. Broadcasting down and across to your neighbours). I'd suggest:
- Repositioning the router (With the Reflector in mind possibly)
- Turn off any power saving schemes on router & cards.
- Upgrade the firmware & increase the power. I'm not sure re: losing settings; but surely there's an option to save the config via the admin panel?

Also, can you state what PCI card it came with? Thanks.

MicraBoy

Classic! I think we should have a sticky for links to various homemade anntennae for wireless gear.

Free Anntennas
Cantenna (Commercial but you can make your own from a pringles can!)
WokFi

On the point about losing your settings, as Karoma said you should probably have an option to save the config to a file to make restoring easier. I do on my 3Com router anyway.

Zascar

I'd like to try the reflector thing but I'd probably just be wasting my time. Mine is a WRK54G, it only has one ariel, not sure how that would affect it. The link above doesn't really make it very clear, anyone know wheret o find better instructions?

I want to try to upgrade the bios but I'm still not sure if it will wipe my settings. I found the backup an restore until, don't entirely trust it though.

Are there any add on's I can but to get a stronger signal, or are there any routers that boast a much stronger signal than normal? If so I might just buy a new one...

alantc

You can increase the signal by replacing the antennas with bigger ones. The only website I know is www.fab-corp.com I bought from there before but shipping was about $30. Does anyone know anywhere else to get them. I need one too so we coud split shipping. I'm pretty sure there's an Irish website selling them to though.

Zascar

Yeah that is probably what i need. I found this on the Linksys site but I don't think they have one for my router the WRK54G


I went on to the online tech support, live chat,, and the guy told me that I can get a WERE54G V2 which would boost the signal.

However he said I shold first change the chanel that the wireless is on. Also, it is beside a portable telephone which aparantly can seriosuly deterioriate the signal. even if it is beside a metal object this can affect it so I;m going to try those things first...

MisterAnarchy

I made one of those corner reflector antennaes last night.
I set it up and it does boost the signal.
Definitely works .

Zascar

Really, cool! How did you make it? Can you post a pic?

SouperComputer

mount this puppy http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=304362&cks=SER

worked for me. As the tech guys said, defo try different channels.

also, try to mount the antenna in position it so that there is at little metal within line of sight from it to each of the nodes.

Zascar

Ok I'm back with this problem again. We moved the router into middle ground, but we both have low signal that comes and goes... Is this normal? Sometimes its fine and sometmies it is very low or breaks completely...

mount this puppy http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=304362&cks=SER

worked for me.

Will this work with a Linksys does anyone know?
Cheers