XPost: alt.home.repair, sci.electronics.repair
From: _arlen.george@halder.edu
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:45:58 -0000 (UTC), Dan Purgert wrote:
> In open air, with a "standard" +3 dBi antenna (as used in nearly all
> 802.11a/b/g/n/ac general-purpose access points), you'll get about 120
> meters or so in open air before the connection starts becoming
> unreliable.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for sharing that useful information about 3dBi omnis on most
general-purpose "access points", where I assume you mean routers mostly.
120 meters in open air seems kind of far for a typical $100 home router,
but let's accept that as the "typical" open-air distance since we are
discussing increasing the range in two fundamental common instances:
1. The computer has only an RJ45 network interface, or,
2. The computer's current Wi-Fi range is insufficient.
> Now, if you live way out in the middle of nowhere, you might be able to
> push it a bit farther, due to less EM noise; but nowhere near "hundreds
> of yards" or "a small number of miles".
Understood. I live in the "middle of nowhere" so to speak, but even I have
unidentified noise as the free AirView Spectrum Analyzer software shows:
I'm sure you're aware of this, Dan, but the others may not be aware that
this type of analysis is yours for the taking with this equipment, where,
to buy a standalone hardware spectrum analyzer tool would be costly:
> Note too, that in order to do this, both ends will need to be up at
> about their maximum conducted transmit power, and as such, the overall
> MCS rate will suffer somewhat.
Agreed that both ends matter.
o BTW, there's nothing stopping you from buying _two_ radios for this task
We haven't covered "setup" yet, where the reader will be happy to note that
I assess the setup to be about the same simplicity (or complexity) as is
the typical setup for any home router (as a repeater, for example).
Luckily, setup is, in the end, not a big deal since you generally have two
main options, where there are plenty of setup tutorials on the net:
o Configure a Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) ISP-Style Access Point
o How to Configure an Indirect Point-to-Point (PtP) Link (Bridge, Repeater)
> If one end or the other has a higher gain antenna (such as the 16 dBi
> one on the UBNT Nanobeam M5 -- which is considered a legacy product by
> the manufacturer), then you may be able to eke out some additional
> range; although at that point it's entirely up to the capabilities of
> the mobile device.
Agreed that there are so many options, that it is confusing...
Given that the whole point of this discussion is:
a. Figure out what range people get today
b. Learn how to extend that range (appreciably) if needed...
This document by Uquibiti helps people decide what "stuff" they need:
o Which product should I use
> One thing to note is that many manufacturers of these long-range radios
> have moved on to ASICs, and as such, the devices are no longer able to
> modulate the carrier in an 802.11-compliant manner. So, no "WiFi".
Let's stick to "WiFi" for the purpose of "this" discussion, since our goal
o Is to determine what range most people need
And, if they need more (perhaps even vastly more) range, then...
o We can show them how to extend the range of their home access points
o And we can show them how to extend the range of their standalone computer
(Even if that standalone computer has only an Ethernet and no "WiFi" card.)
BTW, Dan, what should we colloquially refer to the setup like this as?
--
The goal of this Usenet potluck is to (vastly) increase range at low cost.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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