Need a stronger signal

Am surfing the net wireless, speed and connection are good but signal
is "very weak". Someone told me there is a device that you place in
your laptop that will pull in signal stronger. I heard that they sell
this on pcmall.com. Does anyone know which item I should purchase to
amplify signal on my end without having access to the router?
Please post.
notebook is hp zv5120us
windows xp home
512 ram
Thank you.
Signal I connect to is linksys.

On 22 Dec 2005 17:36:41 -0800, "Robert" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Am surfing the net wireless, speed and connection are good but signal
>is "very weak". Someone told me there is a device that you place in
>your laptop that will pull in signal stronger. I heard that they sell
>this on pcmall.com. Does anyone know which item I should purchase to
>amplify signal on my end without having access to the router?
>Please post.
>notebook is hp zv5120us
>windows xp home
>512 ram

| http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...00250512&lc=en
I can't tell exactly what type of wireless card you have inside but
it's probably a MiniPCI card which means you're going to have some
difficulties attaching an external antenna. More on this later...

The device you're probably thinking of is an external laptop antenna.
Something like this:
| http://www.radiolabs.com/products/an...0681bd0f185349
The problem is that there's no easy way to attach the coax cable to
the MiniPCI card without drilling a hole in the laptop for the coax
cable. The MiniPCI wireless card also probably uses u-FL connectors,
which are not very rugged and will destroy themselves if improperly
handled. A good tug on the coax cable, and the connector is busted.
I've seen people drill a hole in the laptop case and mount an SMA
connector, and solder the coax to the board, but methinks that might
be a bit extereme for a relatively new laptop.

The right way to do this is to add an external PCMCIA or USB wireless
card that has external access to the RF connector and which will allow
easy access for the antenna coax. Something like this kit:
| http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wi...k-wifi-kit.php
Note that this is 802.11b and not 802.11g. There are other cards and
kits that will do this. The basic idea is to get the coax cable out
of the laptop without destroying the laptop. The rest is antenna
design.

If this is too complex or expensive, you might wanna try a cheapo
802.11g USB dongle. The advantage is that you can extend the USB
cable 16ft away from the laptop. Since there's no RF on the cable,
there's no RF loss from the coax cable. The USB radio will give you
more options in terms of locating the the radio, such as out a window
or sitting on top of your head (I've seen it done). If you go
shopping for one of these, try to get one that has an obvious tilt up
antenna as the circuit board and sub-miniature antennas found in most
of the tiny USB radios absolutely suck for antenna gain.

>Signal I connect to is linksys.

Much depends on the model number of the Linksys, the type of antenna
used, and the number of walls and obstructions you have to go through
between you and the Linksys. If you have no control over this
wireless router, then you have to do all the improvements on your end.
However, if you can do something about its location or antenna, you
may be able to get away with nothing more than a bigger antenna or a
simple repositioning of the wireless router.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

Jeff: Thanks for the advice. The one on pcmall was some kind of card
that you put in the pcmcia? slot; that one was just a booster and did
not have an antenna attached to it. Do you think anything like that
would pull in the signal stronger?

On 22 Dec 2005 18:50:05 -0800, "Robert" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Jeff: Thanks for the advice. The one on pcmall was some kind of card
>that you put in the pcmcia? slot; that one was just a booster and did
>not have an antenna attached to it. Do you think anything like that
>would pull in the signal stronger?

Can you supply the exact URL's of what you're thinking of buying?

I hestitate to recommend anything until I know:
1. What you're trying to accomplish.
2. What you have to work with.
Simply buying a bigger antenna, power amplifier, booster, or whatever
is not going to do much good if you don't have line of sight, have
tons of interference, or are dealing with excessive reflections.

I'll try to guess what you're suggesting. The PCMCIA card is probably
a high power wi-fi card. This is a tolerable way of squeezeing some
more range out of system, especially since they have an external
antenna connector. However, it's the antenna that make the
difference, not the card. I suspect it will help, but I can't tell
how much or if the expenditure will be worthwhile.

I don't know what you mean by booster. The term has been abused to
mean everything from a bi-directional power amplifier, store and
forward repeater, or just a better antenna. I typed in "booster" into
the PCMaul search page and only found a Hawkins MIMO repeater. I
don't wanna speculate without knowing the specifics.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

heres the link to pcmall - the item says lynksys g booster

My signal is weak; I am trying to "amplify" it.






https://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/search...=1&incimage=on

My friend said I could try changing channels by rt clicking the item in
system tray?? was not able to figure out how to change channels.

Let me know if you think any of those items would be worthwhile(I am on
someone else's connection fron their router) He also said I could buy
a repeator.
Let me know what you think, Jeff.
Thank you.

On 22 Dec 2005 21:54:02 -0800, "Robert" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>heres the link to pcmall - the item says lynksys g booster
>My signal is weak; I am trying to "amplify" it.
>https://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/search...=1&incimage=on
This link returns 308 wireless cards. Wanna tell me what's the
Linksys model number?

>My friend said I could try changing channels by rt clicking the item in
>system tray?? was not able to figure out how to change channels.

No. You cannot do that with infrastructure mode. The wireless access
point controls the frequency. There's nothing you can do at the
client end to change it. (That's not true for ad-hoc mode, but you're
not using that).

>Let me know if you think any of those items would be worthwhile(I am on
>someone else's connection fron their router) He also said I could buy
>a repeator.

I'll guess (again) that the Linksys G "booster" is a WRE54G "range
extender".
| http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satel...VisitorWrapper
I personally do not like repeaters or similar contrivances. I also
don't like power amplfiers. Each has problems which I don't wanna go
into right now. I much prefer to improve signal strength with
antennas. I (again) cannot offer any conclusions since I have no clue
what wireless path looks like. Solutions depend heavily on topology
(network layout) and line of sight.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Robert wrote:
> Am surfing the net wireless, speed and connection are good but signal
> is "very weak". Someone told me there is a device that you place in
> your laptop that will pull in signal stronger. I heard that they sell
> this on pcmall.com. Does anyone know which item I should purchase to
> amplify signal on my end without having access to the router?
> Please post.
> notebook is hp zv5120us
> windows xp home
> 512 ram
> Thank you.
> Signal I connect to is linksys.
>
This is the same guy who on Dec 15 stated that it is NOT his wireless
signal, that he is stealing it from a neighbor.

Ken: What do you think you're some kind of cop? You are a loser.
Robert