Placement of wireless router and antenna configuration?

In a house what is the best location for the wap? I understand
centrally located is best for all around reception.

Should it be located up high? What about the antennas (have a
LinkSys (802.11B) with two antennas. Is the orientation of the
antennas significant?

Can connect fine in the same room but once I go to other locations
either in other parts of the house or on the patio signal strength
drops to about 60%.

Using a cable modem...will a weak internet data signal affect the
connection or does the router amplify the signal?
TIA,

Ham

There's no single right answer to what's the best location. It depends on
the construction materials in your house, how big the house is, transmit
power and receive sensitivity of the radios, and quality of the antennas.

In general, you want the AP to be at the center of a circle (or sphere) with
a radius no larger than 100 to 150 feet, with all of the clients located
inside. An AP's range may claim to be as much as 300 feet, but I wouldn't
count on good signal beyond 100 feet or so. The actual range may be much,
much shorter if your walls or floors are built with lots of metal or
materials containing metal. You won't know until you try.

If all clients are in one room, a bookshelf or other high point is a
reasonable choice because there is usually unobstructed line of sight from
everywhere in the room. If clients are spread over multiple floors, either
the top floor or the basement is a reasonable choice - but in this case,
you'd probably want to tilt the AP antennas horizontal to the floor. In the
multiple-floor case, it's best to get the clients as close to directly under
the AP as possible. Otherwise, the signal has to traverse one or more floors
at an oblique angle. That interposes a lot more construction material (the
hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle is 40% longer than either of the sides).
Also, if you have lots of metal objects (like bookshelves) you might get
problems due to multipath echo.

If you can't get good signal, you have other options to explore - better
antennas (which means more directional, so that might restrict client
placement), reflectors, signal boosting, or a second AP.

As to the cable modem question, I'm not sure what you meant by "weak
internet data signal". If you meant the radio signal, it doesn't affect the
cable modem in any way. The AP receives data payloads from wireless data
frames and completely repackages them into Ethernet frames to hand over to
the cable modem. The modem takes the data payloads out of the Ethernet
frames and again completely repackages them for transmission over the cable.
If the wifi signal is weak, the AP will simply not receive some frames.

"Hamish McStill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In a house what is the best location for the wap? I understand
> centrally located is best for all around reception.
>
> Should it be located up high? What about the antennas (have a
> LinkSys (802.11B) with two antennas. Is the orientation of the
> antennas significant?
>
> Can connect fine in the same room but once I go to other locations
> either in other parts of the house or on the patio signal strength
> drops to about 60%.
>
> Using a cable modem...will a weak internet data signal affect the
> connection or does the router amplify the signal?
> TIA,
>
> Ham

On Fri, 07 May 2004 10:20:17 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Hamish
McStill <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>In a house what is the best location for the wap? I understand
>centrally located is best for all around reception.

Depends. For instance ou might want to position it so that you get
reasonable signal in the front room, but not outside in the street where
wardrivers could detect you.

>Should it be located up high? What about the antennas (have a
>LinkSys (802.11B) with two antennas. Is the orientation of the
>antennas significant?

Typically, yes and yes. However YMMV, you will need to experiment to find
the best location. Mine turned out to be about 11 feet up on the back wall
of the house.

>Can connect fine in the same room but once I go to other locations
>either in other parts of the house or on the patio signal strength
>drops to about 60%.

Normal. Walls absorb radio variably, depending on the amount of iron
present in the building materials.

>Using a cable modem...will a weak internet data signal affect the
>connection or does the router amplify the signal?

No and no.
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.angelfire.com/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc.html>


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