No improvement with 12dBi Antenna ?

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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 12:16    Post subject: No improvement with 12dBi Antenna ? Reply with quote
So I bought a 12dBi antenna to increase the range on my WRT160NL, some reason I only bought 1, brain lapse, but anyway,

It doesn't seem to have made any difference whatsoever to the range

I've tried with and without the other stock antenna, and I've played with the dBi antenna gain in DD-WRT pushing it from 1.8 to 12 and absolutely no difference

Have I been stung with a normal antenna sold as high gain 12dBi?

What settings should I be using to get the most out of the new antenna (Before I buy another one for the other side)

I have it on the left side if you are looking at the router from the back.

Appreciate any tips before I give a negative score to the 100% positive ebayer !


New Antenna





You can see the signal strength is way lower than it should be considering you can see how close the tablet is to the router in the background and if I walk about 15 meters into the bathroom I'm almost out of range




DD-WRT stats showing weak signal on clients only less than 2 meters away from the router


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BasCom
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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 12:34    Post subject: Reply with quote
use stock antenna, move with your portable client till the end of wirelessrange (~85 dbm ). let it there, use new antenna sgain and see results. guess you will NOT see any enhancements very close to the router.
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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 12:41    Post subject: Reply with quote
BasCom wrote:
use stock antenna, move with your portable client till the end of wirelessrange (~85 dbm ). let it there, use new antenna sgain and see results. guess you will NOT see any enhancements very close to the router.



Yea I already did that. Bathroom always had next to no signal, with the new antenna nothing has changed, the range is exactly the same

But I should be getting more than 60% signal when I am right up against the router. What is going on there ?

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AZERTY123
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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 13:22    Post subject: Reply with quote
Can't comment about the given antenna, but many (all?) of these 'bay antennas have even lower gain than stock despite the high dBi as many posts in this forum report. I got a 12 dBi which performed worser than stock 3dBi. Then I used a TP-link 8dBi antenna which gave the needed boost. I suspect your range has atleast not degraded as you have still one good stock antenna remaining Razz
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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 13:57    Post subject: Reply with quote
AZERTY123 wrote:
Can't comment about the given antenna, but many (all?) of these 'bay antennas have even lower gain than stock despite the high dBi as many posts in this forum report. I got a 12 dBi which performed worser than stock 3dBi. Then I used a TP-link 8dBi antenna which gave the needed boost. I suspect your range has atleast not degraded as you have still one good stock antenna remaining Razz


Yea that's my guess too.. it was only about £7 inc del, so not lost much, cheap lesson.

I`m getting a better router at some point anyway, just decided to try squeeze a bit more out of this one for now.

Cheers

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slybunda
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PostPosted: Mon May 21, 2012 23:01    Post subject: Reply with quote
same here, dont use cheapo antennas. use branded ones. i use tp-link since they are the cheapest branded ones and give exactly what they say on the box.
adri
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PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 9:40    Post subject: Reply with quote
Detection wrote:
BasCom wrote:
use stock antenna, move with your portable client till the end of wirelessrange (~85 dbm ). let it there, use new antenna sgain and see results. guess you will NOT see any enhancements very close to the router.



Yea I already did that. Bathroom always had next to no signal, with the new antenna nothing has changed, the range is exactly the same

But I should be getting more than 60% signal when I am right up against the router. What is going on there ?

What you are seeing in the dd-wrt info is NOT the signal level, but the signal quality.
You can have through the roof signal levels, but with low quality.
Watching your screen, you have a signal level of -r43 dBm and aSNR of 53, which is great and more then enough for good reception.
As another poster already pointed out, you will start to loose signal and have no reception when the signal level drops below -85 to -90 dBm.
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PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 19:35    Post subject: Reply with quote
eBay "12dBi" antennas" THATS your problem. Demand a refund & stick to proper BRANDED antennas at any local electronics/computer store. Yes a "mere 6dBi" one there could be double the price but its a true 6dBi & will yield a large difference over this crap you're using now, you're lucky to get 2dBi from them. My 2 D-Link 6dBi antennas beat my eBay "9dBi" ones.
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PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2012 23:14    Post subject: Reply with quote
slybunda wrote:
same here, dont use cheapo antennas. use branded ones. i use tp-link since they are the cheapest branded ones and give exactly what they say on the box.


Thanks, will hunt some down Smile



adri wrote:
Detection wrote:
BasCom wrote:
use stock antenna, move with your portable client till the end of wirelessrange (~85 dbm ). let it there, use new antenna sgain and see results. guess you will NOT see any enhancements very close to the router.



Yea I already did that. Bathroom always had next to no signal, with the new antenna nothing has changed, the range is exactly the same

But I should be getting more than 60% signal when I am right up against the router. What is going on there ?

What you are seeing in the dd-wrt info is NOT the signal level, but the signal quality.
You can have through the roof signal levels, but with low quality.
Watching your screen, you have a signal level of -r43 dBm and aSNR of 53, which is great and more then enough for good reception.
As another poster already pointed out, you will start to loose signal and have no reception when the signal level drops below -85 to -90 dBm.


Ah, your right, my mistake for not reading the meters properly, I assumed it was strength, that explains a lot, but yea the antenna is crap and not true 12dBi Smile




tatsuya46 wrote:
eBay "12dBi" antennas" THATS your problem. Demand a refund & stick to proper BRANDED antennas at any local electronics/computer store. Yes a "mere 6dBi" one there could be double the price but its a true 6dBi & will yield a large difference over this crap you're using now, you're lucky to get 2dBi from them. My 2 D-Link 6dBi antennas beat my eBay "9dBi" ones.


The guy offered me a refund but I told him not to bother, it was only £7 and after postage etc, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle. It will come in handy somewhere along the line

Advice well taken, thanks, next one will be branded.

If anyone has a link to some decent ones on ebay I`d appreciate it.

Thanks everyone

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buddee
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2012 0:39    Post subject: Reply with quote
Since you are in the UK, i won't be able to give you an ebay link to (i'm in the US) but i will suggest if you can find them to get a pair of d-link ant24-0700 7dBi, they are some of the best i have used and continue to use now. And yes, as far as signal improvement goes, it will give it a noticeable boost, atleast it does for the few external antenna units that i use them on.
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slybunda
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2012 23:55    Post subject: Reply with quote
forget ebay and just go to a proper shop:
http://www.ebuyer.com/262936-tp-link-tl-ant2408cl-antenna-802-11-b-g-indoor-omni-directional-black-tl-ant2408cl?

there is 20 other online stores that sell this, even amazon has it with free delivery too.
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 11:25    Post subject: Reply with quote
buddee wrote:
Since you are in the UK, i won't be able to give you an ebay link to (i'm in the US) but i will suggest if you can find them to get a pair of d-link ant24-0700 7dBi, they are some of the best i have used and continue to use now. And yes, as far as signal improvement goes, it will give it a noticeable boost, atleast it does for the few external antenna units that i use them on.


Nice thanks, I`ll have a look for some of them, cheers





slybunda wrote:
forget ebay and just go to a proper shop:
http://www.ebuyer.com/262936-tp-link-tl-ant2408cl-antenna-802-11-b-g-indoor-omni-directional-black-tl-ant2408cl?

there is 20 other online stores that sell this, even amazon has it with free delivery too.



Cheers, I usually buy my stuff from eBuyer, why are they not advertised as Wireless N too ? Surely b/g/n will all work fine ?

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AZERTY123
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 2:54    Post subject: Reply with quote
Antenna cannot differentiate B/G vs N, it should work for anything on 2.4 GHz irrespective of standards.
Edit: Read the detailed specs N is mentioned there Smile
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