wrt54gp2 antenna

alc

I'm having trouble with the signal strength on my wrt54gp2 (house must have funny walls or something!). I'm going to try replacing the antenna with a higher gain one. I have found a number of reasonably princed suitable antennas on eBay (it needs an RP-SMA antenna in case anyone else is wondering).

Problem is I don't know what type of antenna, gain-wise, is already on it. I don't want to get a 15-inch 9dbi antenna if it's complete overkill! So does anyone know the spec of the factory antenna and I'll just get the next one up.

Also, if anyone knows that anything greater than xdbi is a waste of time because the router can't provide the wattage (or similar) let me know.

Cheers.

Villain

I replaced a 3dbi antenna on my DLink with a 9dbi I got from ebay and tbh it doesn't really make much of a difference in the house, it does make a difference in length outside alright but I think the solid walls stop it from making an difference inside, perhaps look at a repeater AP?

humaxf1

Your PC case is more than likely shielding the signal. Getting a higher gain aerial may not 'gain' anything for you if it is still in the same location. You could try a magnetic base and stick it on top of your case which will give it better line of site to your AP.

I'm not so sure that the advertised dB gain of aerials is 100% accurate or not. If you were to disect a 10 & 20dB aerial...they would probably look the same TBH.

azzeretti

irish1 wrote:

I replaced a 3dbi antenna on my DLink with a 9dbi I got from ebay and tbh it doesn't really make much of a difference in the house,

Omni or directional?

Where is the AP located in relation to the NIC? I have the same AP in the attic in my house and had trouble with signals. I ended up getting a 12dbi directional and pointing downwards towards the room the PC/Laptop is in. It works great.

However, I will soon be getting rid of wireless altogether and going back to cable (Ehternet over mains) due the health risks -
(Que, whole can of worms!)

Villain

Omni, I haven't got any issues now I moved the AP to the center of the house, just advsing the OP that he may not see the improvement he wants from a new antenna.

alc

Well, I'm using a laptop with onboard adapter, have tried usb and pcmcia cards with no improvement. The router is on ground floor, all rooms above (2 floors) have no problems, the only problem is with room on other side of kitchen when fridge, oven, hob etc are between client and router, if I move to an area in this room with a straight line to router that doesn't go thru kitchen-appliance area the problem is negated. I doubt the problem is caused by the actual appliances but the electrical wiring associated with them in the wall. (changing location is last option, location factor is complicated and OT anyway).

Anyway, if noone knows the spec of the stock antenna then I reckon I'll try the 9dbi.

alc

well it turns out it's the WPA and not signal strength after all, if I use WEP (hahaha!) or no-encryption I experience no problems. So before anyone else goes off buying high-gain antennas try turning off the WPA first! Strange that a WPA problem at the router would result in low-signal strength though. (although this could simply be how the symptoms of the actual problem are perceived by client software/hardware).

FYI I have the following from linksys support on the topic of WRT54GP2 & WPA connection problems:

Linksys is already aware of this problem and our product engineers are currently doing the fix for this. I cannot give a definite time regarding when will the fix be released but it will be posted on our site as soon as it’s finished.

(nice of them to let their customers know this, pity we have to ask on a one to one basis!)