Which external directional antenna should I buy?

harryh9

Living on north side of Cork city. I have good line of site to alot of the city. I have a wireless NIC, and using Netstumbler I can detect a number of AP's. The signal quality for most of them is very poor. I was looking at purchasing an external directional antenna for my wireless NIC.

I looked at Komplett and the best they have is one for 30euro that offers a gain of 6 dB.

I have also looked at wi-pipe.net and they have a parbolic antenna for 45euro that gives a gain of ~20 dB. It terminates in an N-MAle connector, I assume if I also get a pigtail adaptor, then there shouldnt be a problem connecting it to the MC connection on the NIC.

Has anyone got first hand experience of using one of these aerials, would they recommend them? If not could anyone suggest an alternative?

Thanks.

Fobia

I've been using a Stella 20.5dB parabolic for nearly a year now, and I have to say they're great antennae, hasn't caused me any problems yet.

One thing about connecting the antenna to your NIC, so long as the connections (and genders) are the same (opposite in the case of genders obviously) you shouldn't have any problem, but unless you're using a long pigtail (which would cause a ton of loss, and would be very fragile), you're probably going to want 2 N connectors, then have some rg213 or LMR400 running between the N connectors so that you can move the antenna around a bit etc.

Good luck and if you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask

harryh9

I was just going to use whatever length of coax is on the antenna, im guessing its probably only a foot or two. What I am going to do is put the NIC on the window sill, inside the window, and mount the antenna on a block of wood or something similar, and also leave this inside the window. Do you think I'm only wasting my time mounting it indoors? Have you mounted your Stella antenna externally, if so what length of cable have you run between it and the NIC. One final question, I have looked at the pigtails on the wi-pipe site, they supply an MCX and an MMCX pigtail. Will these connect to the MC connection on my NIC (a Buffalo model)?

Thanks for all your help.

humaxf1

Use an MMDS dish...cheap as dirt

harryh9

Dont have access to one of those unfortunalty, gonna have to buy one.

Fobia

harryh9 wrote:

Do you think I'm only wasting my time mounting it indoors?

No, but you'll get a much better signal if you mount it outside...

harryh9 wrote:

Have you mounted your Stella antenna externally, if so what length of cable have you run between it and the NIC.

Yes, mine is mounted on my chimney, right now there's about 30ft of co-ax running down to a WRAP board with a mini-pci NIC in it, but in the next few weeks I hope to mount the WRAP in a waterproof box on the chimney and reduce the length of the LMR400 down to maybe 3 or 4 feet.

harryh9 wrote:

I was just going to use whatever length of coax is on the antenna, im guessing its probably only a foot or two.

Yup, but if you're able to work with only that much co-ax (you'll have to have your NIC very close to the antenna!) then go for it I guess .

harryh9 wrote:

One final question, I have looked at the pigtails on the wi-pipe site, they supply an MCX and an MMCX pigtail. Will these connect to the MC connection on my NIC (a Buffalo model)?

I think the MCX is the same connection that the MC-card's use, but I'm not sure so don't quite me on it . I don't know much about this as all the cards I've used have been mini-pci and therefore u.fl connectors, have a look around the web for info on pigtails you should be able to find something of use...

Again, any more questions don't hesitate to ask!

bigpaddy2004

Fobia.....just for interest, how far is the AP you are connecting to. I would be interested as you are using 30ft of cable. What is the signal level like?

Fobia

The link is around 4km in length. There is far too much cable, but my SNR is usually around 20-22.

bigpaddy2004

Fobia wrote:

The link is around 4km in length. There is far too much cable, but my SNR is usually around 20-22.

Quick reply!! that is a very good signal for that distance & length of cable. Let me know what the signal level comes up to when you move your nic closer to the antenna. I would'nt think it will go up an awful lot though.
Thanks.

oscarBravo

harryh9 wrote:

Living on north side of Cork city. I have good line of site to alot of the city. I have a wireless NIC, and using Netstumbler I can detect a number of AP's. The signal quality for most of them is very poor. I was looking at purchasing an external directional antenna for my wireless NIC.

Let me see if I've got this straight: you want a high-gain antenna so you can more effectively eavesdrop on random access points around the city?

Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

harryh9

I'm actually trying to connect to the CorkWireless network, getting a very poor signal to it, thats why I'm looking for a suitable external antenna.
I appreciate your input, would you have any thoughts on what the best antenna would be?

Fobia

harryh9 wrote:

I'm actually trying to connect to the CorkWireless network,

That's what I suspected, actually, I remember DannyD having a segment on one of the Seattlewireless episodes, might be worth having a look at if you want to connect...

Oscarbravo: Though your concerns are fair, I think you'll find that in most irish cities (especially Limerick and Galway), the majority of open nodes with wide coverage are open intentionally (ie IrishWAN), if he was trying to crack someone's security and get free internet access I wouldn't offer advice so easily .

oscarBravo

harryh9 wrote:

I'm actually trying to connect to the CorkWireless network, getting a very poor signal to it, thats why I'm looking for a suitable external antenna.

It might not have been a bad idea to say so in your initial post.

harryh9 wrote:

I appreciate your input, would you have any thoughts on what the best antenna would be?

For price/performance, it's hard to beat a Stella (wi-pipe).

daveharlowe

harryh9 wrote:

I'm actually trying to connect to the CorkWireless network, getting a very poor signal to it, thats why I'm looking for a suitable external antenna.
I appreciate your input, would you have any thoughts on what the best antenna would be?

aye, as OscarBravo said, the stella are good.

You can buy them here : http://www.wi-pipe.net/

regards,
Dave