[olug] WRT (was: Tonight's meeting)

[Shawn Mattingly]

I don't have a lot of first hand experience using Linksys WAPs, but I
have set up a lot of them for clients.  I do have a lot of experience
with installing Cisco WAPs and one thing that is different about them is
the antennas.  You can probably get better RF propagation by sticking a
paperclip in the antenna jack of a Linksys WAP than by using the antenna
that they ship with (an exaggeration, don't try it, you will probably
blow the front end of the transmitter and brick your WAP, but still the
antenna the Linksys ships with is rated at something like 1.1dBi of
gain).   You might want to try a different antenna before buying a
different piece of gear.  I have had good luck with this antenna from
Fleeman, Anderson & Bird:

http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?productid=1432&cat=282&page=1
<http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?productid=1432&cat=282&page=1>

If you prefer to buy your stuff locally, I talked Mitch at Computer
Outlet Center in Ralston into being a fab-corp reseller and he usually
has a few of these on hand.  For ~$10 it may be worth it to see if your
RF environment combined with a poor emitter is limiting your data rate
or if it really is something to do with the WAP itself.  I have used
these extensively at client installations and for site surveys with
great success.

Shawn

Dan Linder wrote:
> Travis Owens wrote:
>   
>> This struck a chord with me, since my new Linksys WRT54G (V8) is
>> having significant wireless speed issues. I understand there is
>> potential loss of speed compared to wired connections, but we're
>> sitting within 20 feet of the router, and our wired speeds are +10M/s
>> easily... wireless is 3M/s at best...
>>
>> The preliminary research I've done so far, points to an upgrade to
>> dd/open-wrt as helping, but saying it's never going to be the same...
>>
>> I'm not asking for the same, but good grief... paying for a 12M/s pipe
>> and only getting 1/4 of it... I think not...
>>
>> Anyway, I figured to toss this out there and see if anyone has had
>> similar experiences, or any suggestions to fix it.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Travis
>>     
>
> I can't speak for the high-end business class WAP hardware (i.e. only an 
> access point, not an access point + firewall + DHCP + DNS + router + NTP 
> + media server + ... *ahem*)...
>
> Anyway, my point is that these small devices tend to use the lowest 
> priced part, and since a faster CPU is more expensive, they put in just 
> enough CPU to handle the encryption, but not enough to handle it at wire 
> speeds.
>
> When I did have access to a Cisco WAP (4-5 years ago) I remember that 
> the transfer speeds with encryption were around the 7-8Mbit and the 
> un-encrypted traffic seemed to be quite close to the 10-11Mbit.  I know 
> for a fact that my inexpensive "Hawking Tech" router/WAP can't even push 
> 7Mbit through the wired port so I doubt the wireless is very fast if I 
> were to measure it.
>
> The dd/open-wrt might be an option, but what if you made a PC-based 
> WAP/router/firewall with an older P2 and a wireless NIC?  That's my next 
> step when I get free time to screw up..er, um, enhance my home network. 
> :-)  A P2-500 would have quite a bit more horsepower than the small CPUs 
> that are used in the off-the-shelf firewall/routers.
>
> Dan "IANAEE" Linder
>
>