What is the best WiFi antenna for me? ( 2 )

Home

Home antennas are always the easiest types of antennas to purchase and take the least amount of effort in choosing and installing. In most circumstances, only one antenna is needed on the remote computer. We recommend putting any external antenna on the remote computer, simply because if you install it on your router and don’t plan on setting up security, it will provide less signal strength outside of your home and your system will be less prone to hackers. If you have a multi-story home or a very large house, you may have to install antennas on every computer to get the range or bandwidth required. Every wall that you have to penetrate will decrease the signal strength of your system. For the best signal strength and signal, we recommend installing a 5dB ceiling dome antenna and either wireless desktop antennas or RL-1000 antennas on all remote computers. It is best to start with 1 antenna on a remote computer and test the signal strength and range.

Office

Office antennas are pretty straight forward. If you want to run a network system inside of your office building and don’t want to run cables all over the place, first, purchase a good wireless card, install a Ceiling Dome, Desktop or Wibberduck antenna to extend and maximize the signal to your office router. It’s that simple. However, this can get a little complex if the office is split between 2 different points or if the office is really large or on multiple stories of a building.

Mobile WiFi antennas

Why would anyone want WiFi in their car? Well, there are a lot of truck-stops and RV parks around the country now that offer wireless access. In fact, many public high speed wireless networks can be accessed directly from your car, truck, or RV. There is also something called WarDriving which is where bad people drive around neighborhoods and get their high-speed access for free.

Yagi Antennas

Yagi antennas were the design of two Japanese people, Hidetsugu Yagi and Shintaro Uda, and are sometimes referred to as Yagi-Uda antennas. They were originally designed for radio, but are now also used for 802.11 systems. These antennas are typically very directional and are used for point to point, or to extend the range of a point to multi-point system. We highly recommend using the RadioLabs 14 or 16 element weatherproof Yagi antenna if you want to install your system outside. They have excellent signal strength and in the right circumstances can communicate for miles!

Backfire antennas - The backfire is a small directional antenna with excellent gain. They look similar to a parabolic dish, but the gain isn't as high. We highly recommend Backfire antennas for point to point or point to multipoint systems because of the excellent gain and the good noise figures. We offer a backfire antenna with 15 dBi of Gain!! This is excellent considering the antenna is only 10 inches diameter. Almost invisible!!

Parabolic or dish antennas

This is where the real power is! Parabolic dish antennas put out tremendous gain but are a little hard to point and make a connection with. As the gain of an antenna increases, the antenna’s radiation pattern decreases until you have a very little window to point or aim your dish correctly. Dish antennas are almost always used for a point to point system for long haul systems. The Parabolic Dish antennas work by focusing the power to a central point and beaming the radio’s signal to a specific area, kind of like the adjustable reflector on a flashlight. These antennas are highly focused and are the perfect tool if you want to send your signal a very long distance.

Gain Considerations

The gain you will require for each individual WiFi antenna system will dependant on any direct objects in your path, the distance you must cover and the individual wifi cards. These all must be taken into consideration before choosing the proper antenna system. If our calculator is too difficult to use, please feel free to contact us for information.

Interference

As with all radio systems, interference is always a problem. If you are listening to an AM radio and you hear static, this is interference. The same thing applies to WiFi systems, however not to such a large degree. Things that cause interference with WiFi systems are Microwave ovens, certain lighting systems, other 802.11 access points or systems, microwave transmitters, even high speed processors for computers can cause interference for 802.11 systems. All these problems must be isolated before you can expect any significant range out of your system. If you need help, please don't be afraid to ask us. Afterall, WiFi is our business.