[olug] Max range on WAPs

[Rob Townley]

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Obi-Wan <obiwan at jedi.com> wrote:
> I should have just listened to my realtor:  location, location, location.
>
> Monday night, I relocated the old G WAP from the middle of the basement
> to a shelf in front of a picture window in the walk-out wall that faces
> Grandma's house.  I connected to it from a few feet away and then started
> walking toward Grandma's.  I stopped when I hit the far end of the
> pasture -- twice as far from the WAP as her house is (nearly 1/4 mile),
> and obscured from the WAP by her house and some mature trees.  I still
> had good signal (>50%) at that point and could web browse just fine.
>
> Back inside Grandma's house, I had good signal, but when I disconnected
> & tried to reconnect, it wouldn't.  I had to carry my laptop (SUSE Linux
> with internal wireless G) back to Mom's house to reconnect.
>
> I grabbed Mom's new Win7 laptop with internal wireless N, took it
> inside Grandma's house, and it dis/reconnected just fine.  Perhaps
> the MIMO antennas help even when in G mode?  After returning, I was
> able to get my laptop to connect out on Grandma's driveway.
>
> Anyway, it looks like I'm in good shape now without having to buy
> any new equipment.  If this proves to be flaky for them, I may break
> down & buy a generic N router and put it in the same location, since
> N is reputed to have double the range of G.
>
> --
> Ben "Obi-Wan" Hollingsworth                             obiwan at jedi.com
>   The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the
>     Giver of all good things, so if I stand, let me stand on the
>       promise that You will pull me through.  -- Rich Mullins
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Good to hear more distance from N.   Does the laptop have more than 2
antennas?  For the archive, i have a G machine that connects at a
distance using WPA, but only connects using WPA2 when very close to
the base station.