Amplify wireless card, or extend a free connection?

3 Aug 2006 5:55 PM

Daniel Scott Poynter

Hi all,

I just moved in to an apartment building with a friend. There is a free
community wireless signal nearby, but only my friend can access it (his
room is just a *little* closer to the signal than my room).

How can I connect to the Internet with this free signal? There seems to
be two ways,

1. Detach the antenna from my PCI wireless networking card, and move it
to his window. Then, run a wire back to my network card in my room.

I haven't been able to figure out how to do this... but I did find a
card by EDIMAX that connects to its antenna with a 3 ft. wire. That is
the right idea, but about 20-30 ft. too short.

2. Somehow bounce the signal from my friend's machine, to make it go a
little bit farther. Then, I would be able to access it.

Any ideas?

P.S. If you think of any applicable search terms I could use in my
research, I'd be very grateful.

= )

-Dan

3 Aug 2006 6:14 PM

Lem

Daniel Scott Poynter wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> Hi all,
>
> I just moved in to an apartment building with a friend. There is a free
> community wireless signal nearby, but only my friend can access it (his
> room is just a *little* closer to the signal than my room).
>
> How can I connect to the Internet with this free signal? There seems to
> be two ways,
>
> 1. Detach the antenna from my PCI wireless networking card, and move it
> to his window. Then, run a wire back to my network card in my room.
>
> I haven't been able to figure out how to do this... but I did find a
> card by EDIMAX that connects to its antenna with a 3 ft. wire. That is
> the right idea, but about 20-30 ft. too short.
>
> 2. Somehow bounce the signal from my friend's machine, to make it go a
> little bit farther. Then, I would be able to access it.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> P.S. If you think of any applicable search terms I could use in my
> research, I'd be very grateful.
>
>
> = )
>
> -Dan
>

See the pages from MS-MVP Jack at the links at the end of this post.
Particularly note the comment quoted below from Jack's discussion of
hi-gain antennas. If you can figure out where the antenna for the free
community wifi is located, and if it's in line-of-site from your
windows, your best bet probably would be a high-gain directional
antenna. See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cantenna

<quote>
Wireless Hardware usually come with the Antenna attached directly to the
output plug of the unit. Some times better propagation might be
achieved by placing the Antenna in a better location. To do so you need
to have a Wireless unit with a removable external Antenna and you need
an Extension Coax cable. Unlike Network CAT5e cables that can carry the
Network Signal for few hundreds feet without significant loses, a
typical Coax that is used for 2.4GHz Wireless loses 4db per 10 feet.
In other words (as an example) if you take off the 2dbi antenna and
install 8dbi Antenna using 20' of coax the total gain is Zero.
<end quote>

Extending the Distance of Entry Level Wireless Network:
http://www.ezlan.net/Distance.html

and

Hi Gain Antenna for Entry Level Wireless: http://www.ezlan.net/antennae.html