Skip -
I have been thru several iterations. My recommendations:
1. Get a 200 mw wifi PCMCIA card, instead of the standard 30 mw card.
SMC used to make one - don't know who else does. The SMC card is set up
for both internal and external antenna.
2. Get an external antenna. I use a 5 db gain stacked vertical:
http://www.fab-corp.com/ (look down the page for the 5.5 db gain with
the MMCX connector - this fits the SMC card) - costs $11
3. Add a reflector. This one is cheap, easy to build, and _very_
effective:
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/. It can be
built with much more gain than a cantenna. My first version I made
from cardboard with aluminum foil taped over it - took about 15
minutes to build, and gave approx 18 db gain above the 5 db stacked
vertical. Having proved the concept, I have a more permanent version
now ;^)
bob
s/v Eolian, DE45 #11
Seattle
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, it was written:
I'm looking for experience with external antenna solutions to very flaky
wifi access on the boat. There's every sort of hub range improver (get your
signal out to others better) but I don't see much, if anything of the other
way around.
Topsides, the range is only flaky, but at least I can pull and send stuff,
albeit I have to choose my moments. However, the screen is invisible in
anything between dawn and dusk and the keyboard is invisible in the dark,
limiting me severely in timing/scheduling.
So, I'd like to be able to go below, where there's no reception, not to
mention, protection from the elements.
Who's used what (up the mast isn't what I had in mind, though if it made
sense (I can't imagine it would, financially), I'd look at that) in the line
of plug-in remote antennas?
I've lost the link, but I saw something which was an antenna for those
laptops without wifi, on some unknown length of USB lead; one can buy
"active" USB extensions for not too much, which I assume would make it
feasible for me to put the antenna out the hatch while I'm at the nav, for
example...
Thanks for any real-world experience...
L8R
Skip
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
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