Is there such a thing as a external public WIFI antenna to improve performa nce? I'm getting a unusable signal inside my place after they did some sor t of upgrade. It used to work fine until it was upgraded. Now, I have to l ocate myself on a picnic table near the transmitter to get a reliable conne ction. They say they are working on the problems. I can stand outside my do or and it will work, but not inside. I was thinking of putting some sort of external antenna outside my door and just looping a couple turns of wire a round the netbook to get a better signal. But the frequency is either 2 or 5GHz so the antenna elements are very short and I'm not a antenna expert.

External antenna, of course (used to be, lots of WiFi adapters had sockets for external antennae). The antenna part, of course, isn't 'public'. Search on ' WiFi antenna' or a visit to will bring up lots of possibilities. If range/signal strength is an issue, directional antennas are a possible solution. Outdoor systems are available for plug-and-play connections, or (if you have an antenna-connector available) an existing router might be made to serve (but cost of antenna and cable compatibility make that an unappealing prospect).

Outside antenna to improve public WIFI reception?

Dec 19, 2017 22 Replies

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Jeff Liebermann 8 years ago

Heavier wire will certainly help. #20awg is 0.010 ohms/ft. 30ft of cable is 60ft of wire or 0.6 ohms. At 0.5A, the loss is now only

0.3V. The USB dongle should work at 4.7V.

For long USB cable runs, I use CAT5e instead of the official USB cable. One pair for data, and the other 3 pairs in parallel for power. There are adapters available that make it easy: I also use CAT5e for security camera CCTV video with a balun:

I forgot to mumble something about the propagation delays. This article explains the problem:

Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

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Don Kuenz 8 years ago

That's one sweet CAT5e USB cable hack (in a best sense of the word). It's sure to be used by me in the future. Some of my outside plant uses USB Cat5 transceivers. Although they mostly just work they do require a reboot every once in a while. The longest transceiver run is about forty feet, exposed to temperature extremes under the siding of a building. It draws all of the necessary USB power from the host's USB port. Neither end connects to a power adapter.

Thank you,

Don Kuenz, KB7RPU

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DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno 8 years ago

It would seem that CAT 6 cable would perform even better then.

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