Wireless, i want hardcore boostage

Im at the boarding house and a friend of mine has a wireless network down the street. Unfortunatly i cannot connect to it as i am too far away, so is there a way i can get a signal boosting antena to put into my computer so i can connect? My wireless card doesnt have an input of any sort, so it may have to be usb if they make those..

Many thanks

bump

Ideally you should both have directional antennas and be line-of-sight with not objects blocking the signal. If he can point an cantenna down the road that may work, or if you can rig up a cantenna to catch the signal better it may work. It really depends on the hardware on what kind of work you have to do to install antennas.

{ace of spades} said:

Im at the boarding house and a friend of mine has a wireless network down the street. Unfortunatly i cannot connect to it as i am too far away, so is there a way i can get a signal boosting antena to put into my computer so i can connect? My wireless card doesnt have an input of any sort, so it may have to be usb if they make those..

Many thanks

Click to expand...

You could get a directional antenna and point it down that way (be careful to not put your brain in the way as it might get fried, and don't leave your bottled water sitting in the way as it'll boil ), or you could ask the other guy to boost the signal. In fact, I'd prefer that the AP do the signal boosting, unless you get one of those nifty directionals and put it outside.

They do make cards with RF jacks, some PCMCIA and a lot of PCI wireless boards have 'em.

lol... for wifi 500mw is alot of power, no wayyou'll fry your brain or boil water.

i dont reckon you'd be able to mount somethin outside would ya? you could make a nice little setup to run power over ethernet outside to a little panel antenna, with a radio mounted inside of it. then you run cat5 inside to the POE power injector and then to the PC (or a router or whatever)

if it has to stay inside, you could get a floor standing lamp and mount an antenna on it. you can get a nice little 14 dbdish that dont look to bad, or possibly a YAGI variety, im not all that fond of them tho, i like parabolic dishes.

im talkin about all retail here, which will unfortunately get a wee pricey, sub $200 but able to easily make a LOS link a few miles, pretty much like we use when installing a customer to our wireless. i dunno what to reccomend really for DIY except like freeantennas.com or you can find your own DIY.