Hints on placing antenna to get good reach in a 2-story building

Hi!

I have severe problems to get my house covered with 802.11b signals!
The house in question is and old two story wooden building, with only
the chimney made of anything except wood. My access point is placed in
the second floor at one end of the house. I don't even get a good
signal at the first floor, just underneath the access point, and at
the other end of the house (some 10m/30ft away) I get a "no signal"!

I need tips on how to place the antenna for best coverage. The
(single) antenna is of the rubber variety that can be disconnected
from the unit.

My hardware: Netgear 11Mbit/s acess point (with inbuilt ADSL modem) +
Compaq Presario laptop with inbuilt wireless function.

Would it be better to use a Netgear PC-card, instead of the
non-Netgear one in the laptop PC?

Per Stromgren,
Sweden.

Per,

I use an Orinoco access point modified to take an external antenna. This
antenna is a 2.4GHz innendoers sektorantenn which I purchased through WLan
Supply in Olso (www.wlansupply.no). Being a Swedish produced antenna, this
same product is availalble from a mailorder or local supplier near you.
This antenna has a 70 degree coverage. I live in a three story wooden
house in Oslo and have installed the antenna in the attic, the antenna
facing downwards toward the center of the house. The Orinoco access point
connects to the antenna through a low loss 10m cable via a SMA-connector and
a pigtail. With this setup, I get full signal strength on my laptop even
down in the basement. Even my neighbor can receive a signal in his part of
the house (we live in a duplex) but only on the first and second floors. I
am not familiar with your particular AP but probably the rubber whip antenna
connects to the unit via a SMA connector so you might be able to substitute
the whip with a similar antenna to mine.


"Per Stromgren" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi!
>
> I have severe problems to get my house covered with 802.11b signals!

Per Stromgren wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have severe problems to get my house covered with 802.11b signals!
> The house in question is and old two story wooden building, with only
> the chimney made of anything except wood. My access point is placed in
> the second floor at one end of the house. I don't even get a good
> signal at the first floor, just underneath the access point, and at
> the other end of the house (some 10m/30ft away) I get a "no signal"!
>
> I need tips on how to place the antenna for best coverage. The
> (single) antenna is of the rubber variety that can be disconnected
> from the unit.
>
> My hardware: Netgear 11Mbit/s acess point (with inbuilt ADSL modem) +
> Compaq Presario laptop with inbuilt wireless function.
>
> Would it be better to use a Netgear PC-card, instead of the
> non-Netgear one in the laptop PC?
>
> Per Stromgren,
> Sweden.
>
>
>
>
I live in an old house (1930's). The interior walls are covered with
sheet rock and plaster (both). My AP is a netgear ME102. I placed it
near the center of the house at the ceiling of the 1st floor. Get
excellent signal throughout the house. Before placing it where it is
now, I got poor signal in most of the house.

I seem to get slightly better reception with the built in wireless
device than with an external PCMCIA card.

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 18:50:28 +0100, "Robert MacKinnon"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Per,
>
>I use an Orinoco access point modified to take an external antenna. This
>antenna is a 2.4GHz innendoers sektorantenn which I purchased through WLan
>Supply in Olso (www.wlansupply.no).

Thank's Robert, I found it. But should this be needed? It seems to me
that this is a very normal application: someone lives in very normal
sized house and does not want to pull cable and buys a wlan setup. And
it does not do its job!

I better check with product support for my equipment before paying for
the extra antenna.

One extra piece of information: the signal strengths varies between 0
and 5 within seconds. It just sits there and it goes on and off at
random!

Per.

Per Stromgren wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 18:50:28 +0100, "Robert MacKinnon"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>Per,
>>
>>I use an Orinoco access point modified to take an external antenna. This
>>antenna is a 2.4GHz innendoers sektorantenn which I purchased through WLan
>>Supply in Olso (www.wlansupply.no).
>
>
> Thank's Robert, I found it. But should this be needed? It seems to me
> that this is a very normal application: someone lives in very normal
> sized house and does not want to pull cable and buys a wlan setup. And
> it does not do its job!
>
> I better check with product support for my equipment before paying for
> the extra antenna.
>
> One extra piece of information: the signal strengths varies between 0
> and 5 within seconds. It just sits there and it goes on and off at
> random!
>
> Per.
>
>
If your signal strength is varying that wildly, you may be seeing
interference from some other device in the house.

Does your wireless device's software show both signal strength and
noise? Some do, and you may see a large noise level.

If you are getting a lot of interference, you might try changing channels.

The AP isn't designed to project signal downwards, you need to experiment
with positions until you get a better signal where you need it. Moving it
1cm can make a difference. The same applies to your laptop, I found that I
couldn't get good signal at my desk, so I use USB adapter (Orinoco) instead
of PC Card, because I can place it 1.5m high near the window (the signal
comes from another building).
Regards,
Martin

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 01:26:56 -0000, "Martin²"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The AP isn't designed to project signal downwards, you need to experiment
>with positions until you get a better signal where you need it. Moving it
>1cm can make a difference. The same applies to your laptop,

I thought the whole idea of wireles networking was that I _could_ move
the terminal node around! Of course it is good to avoid pulling cables
to permanently installed computers in the house, but my main goal is
to take my laptop computer to different lounge chairs and desks around
the house.

Is this not feasible?

>I found that I
>couldn't get good signal at my desk, so I use USB adapter (Orinoco) instead
>of PC Card, because I can place it 1.5m high near the window (the signal
>comes from another building).

I hear you, but I can't really accept this. Cordless computers have
invisble cords (and short ones at that) attached to them, obviously.

I have asked Netgear support to help me out on this, I will report
back here when I hear from them.

Per.

Per,
wifi works well in good conditions but the transmitters are limited to 100mW
and can't penetrate
certain materials, particularly metals. On top of that the signal gets
reflected. Every place is different.

As for Netgear, when I phoned their UK support I got connected to Ahmed in
India who had the same installation guide in front as I had, and apart from
that knew zilch. Anyway neither the software or hardware worked so I
returned it.
Regards,
Martin