i can address this, having done quite a bit of research. i even found
a manufacturer and tried to connect them with Apple to produce an
Apple-branded accessory antenna, because of the dismal in-house
performance of the antennae apple builds into the machines.
for example, in our wooden two-story house, i can't assure solid
contact between the G4 upstairs (acting as base) and the iBook as it
walks around the rest of the house - which, as the Apple AirPort
product manager agreed, isn't cool (he also said it's like that in his
own house).
he ended the discussion with "Apple generally doesn't discuss possible
upcoming products." clunk.
so here's what to do:
surf around for antenna choices at the price you want. i used these
guys, who are really, really great:
and the antenna i got is:
http://www.dbiplus.com/docs/8_dBi_Patch.pdf
With this one, you then need to get a "pigtail" with a long enough
cable - and correct connectors on each end - to plug into the wireless
card on one end, and to the antenna on the other end. The
configurations of the antenna and card will dictate how the pigtail
looks. For example, Lucent/Orinoco/Agere (or whatever the name is this
week) cards - and this includes the Apple-branded AirPort cards - use a
proprietary little jack. Search on "Lucent connector" and you'll turn
them up.
In my case, I fished the pigtail in thru a hole in the bottom of the
G4, and just plugged it into the AirPort card therein. The other end
goes to the 8dB gain patch antenna which sits loose on the floor so i
can aim it as needed (there is some directionality) to assure best
performance (i can aim it at the family room so i can ebay while
watching tv, or at the dining room if i want to ebay while hosting a
dinner party, or at the back yard if i want to ebay while lying in the
hammock). One could do the same with an airport base station or any
other card (or card-carrying base station) with an antenna jack. There
are sites out there showing how to drill holes (egad!) in your AirPort
base station to connect the Lucent signal booster antenna (more on THAT
later).
now for some philosophies and experience-derived lessons...
1. it's better to boost it at the fixed location. mobile antennas can
become ungainly real fast, and the pigtails are very fragile - ask
anyone who's had to send their iBook back to replace their antenna due
to pinching by the screen hinge. you make the signal out to the remote
louder, and you enhance the base's reception. a possible exception is
someone who'd want to velcro a patch-type antenna to the lid of their
laptop (plus drill holes to fish the wire inside on non-pcmcia models)
in order to use it as the base. i'd say newts should always use the
type with the antenna built onto the end of the card, which extends the
card and pokes out of the slot. there could be directionality on those
types of antennae, so you may have to hold your newt in funny angles at
times (who wants to write a signal strength monitoring app for the
Newt??).
2. the Lucent-branded desktop signal booster omnidirectional antenna
is only 2-3 dB gain, and is expensive too, although physically
attractive with its desktop stand. i found a refurb for $30 and it did
almost nothing for me. List is $80. avoid. the 8dB patch is like $30
or so, plus about $20 for the pigtail (got mine, new, from ebay). you
get benefit from a directional antenna, but you trade off coverage
breadth - so if there are multiple mobiles it could be a problem. this
is where the pringles-can approach falls down, by the way. they're
great if you want to talk in a focussed line between distant
mountaintops, but otherwise...
3. in the US there are regulatory restrictions on manufacturers
regarding transmitter power and signal strength - testing and
certifications are required for antennas as well as transmitters.
there aren't any certifications needed for what we as consumers do,
although there are power restrictions. not many of us can build
amplifiers for the 2.4 gHz band anyway, so getting gain via antennas is
the way to go. 8dB represents a pretty big advantage, and in my own
case it's more than sufficient. i haven't tried walking down the
street to see how far it goes, but it does reach about 100' through
several walls and a floor, with a metal desk near to the base/antenna.
When I'm out back in the garage DXing the internet on my iBook, it
brings back some of those same old ham radio thrills from when i was a
kid. a little.
Hope this helps...
Peter
On Monday, November 11, 2002, at 10:41 AM, Donald Wilson wrote:
>
> I have 2 qquestions about antennae...
>
> 1) Would the antenna boosters used for cell phones that you stick on
> work for
> Wifi Cards like my Orinoco gold? this looks like the one my dad has
> for his
> cell phone: http://www.sb-systems.com/antenna-booster.html
>
> 2) Where can I buy the antennae that use the little coax like end that
> pops
> into the little plug on an Orinoco Gold?
>
> ~Donald
>
- Peter
pjfraser_at_alamedanet.net
=====
"Bush, himself the most intellectually backward American president of
my political lifetime, is surrounded by advisers whose bellicosity is
exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy"
- Gerald Kaufman, a lawmaker from the governing British Labor Party
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