Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:46 Post subject: MIMO Stand (Replacing stock antennas)
I have a really bad reception from the stock antennas. I'm using two routers as a wireless bridge with WDS. I got a new fiber connection last month, and the wall jack is now located in the middle of my departement. The distance between both routers is now only 10 meter instead of 20 as before, but still bad reception.
I tried to figure out why, and it seems that both routers only pull out 25 milliWatts EIRP (14 dBm). I decided to replace all antennas with something better. I found this MIMO stand on the internet. I only need two, but I purchased four because they were quite cheap. You will never know when you need another one.
What do you think about 12dBi antennas? I calculated it to be 396 milliWatt EIRP (26dBm). If you are optimistic, you will believe that an antenna made in China really has 12dBi gain. I'm a little bit skeptic about these numbers, so I think in best case it will be half which is around 200 milliWatt EIRP (23dBm).
So what do you think, will it be enough to get an excellent signal anywhere in my departement, or should I go for 17-18dBi instead? Maybe I don't even need to use maximum RF power if I go for stronger antennas.
Distance = Max 10 meters, and only one partition wall in any direction.
I got them from ebay, just search for "17dbi antenna" and you will find many sellers. The guy I bought from had many different WLAN antennas up to 18dBi with both RP-SMA and RP-TNC connectors.