I am trying to get wifi to my barracks room, how does a omni directional antana work?

Question

Here is the deal. I am stationed on a military post for a couple mounths. There is a no wifi in the building I'm in but withing line of sight there is a building with wifi. We have permision to use the wifi. Can I hook up a tin can waveguide antenna, or Cantenna to my computer or a router in my building to get wifi in there? The building with the wifi has the antana built into the walls. Any suggestions would be great. One last thing will I have to set up any equipment at the building with the wifi?

Answer 1

First - you want a Directional Antenna. Omni is non-directional covers a full circle.

Cantennas are one way to go and do work. You can also get a Yagi (small - looks like a really small outside tv antenna) or a "patch" antenna (looks like a pizza box).
Here is a couple of good places to find them
http://hyperlinktech.com and http://radiolabs.com/

Radio labs has a good information page on antennas
http://www.radiolabs.com/Articles/wifi-antenna.html
As does the ARRL site http://arrl.org (sorry I don't remember the exact page there)

Both of these two suppliers have Directional antennas even "grids" or "backfire antennas" which are probably overkill unless you need a 2-4 miles of coverage

If your radio card does not have an external connector you can get HIGHPOWER cards from either of these two which will allow 10 times the power of the off the self linksys, dlink, etc. Good Luck and Thank you for your Service!

Email me if you need help getting something to work.
Its in my profile

ADDED
I just looked and Hyperlink has a sale on the 15db yagis
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2415y.php

Answer 2

Built into the walls? I would not be surprised if the building is shielded to prevent the signal from getting out. OK, it is most likely on the inside surface, which means (if not shielded) signals pass through the entire wall to get to you, and then through your walls as well as the distance of travel. The outlook is not good that the signal to noise ratio will be high enough for you to receive the signal. I take it you tried a standard adapter and no joy, right? You may be able to get a directional antenna and mount it at an opening to reduce the signal loss of passing through at least your structure and a directional antenna will have some amount of gain that the omni does not have. An omni, short for omnidirectional, is simply a vertical or other type of antenna which radiates in all directions equally. A directional antenna, also called a beam, is directional off the front and back, it just has a higher gain off the front than any other direction. You may be able to attach a beam antenna at the other building pointing your way, but only your network engineering people can tell you if that is possible, and then you have to get the building engineers involved for a mounting point. It is going to be very expensive to add equipment. Unlike adding a 2nd telephone, you can not simply add another antenna to the existing network without consequences which may be detrimental. Adding another antenna can unbalance the existing setup and interfere with each other, which hurts everyone. A repeater might work, but that is something only your network engineers can determine. If you hook anything to the network, you can bring it all down or degrade the performance. From your question, you are not an engineer. The answers to your questions lie with the network and building engineers and their expertise.

By the way, Cantenna was the brand name for a particular type of oil filled dummy load which could handle up to 1000 watts of RF from a transmitter. It was a huge 52 ohm carbon resistor with no inductive or capacitive components, literally built into a standard gallon paint can. Amateur radio operators used these when tuning their equipment at high power so as to not transmit a signal. I have one in my garage which I bought used in 1972 when I got my amatuer license.

Answer 3

You could set up a wi-fi repeater or booster, close as possible to the building providing wi-fi, or somewhere between,or perhaps even in the first building. The repeater will act as a link and boost the signal in your barracks. If the building is farther away, you might need more than one repeater to bridge the distance.

The devices are called repeaters or range expanders and cost around $90.00.

Answer 4

there's something u can get for the comp. its a card sort of like the ones u pay for fits in that slot but its not a plan it is an antenna for the computer that boosts how far off u can catch a signal. i am at work now the building next door has wireless and i am answering your question on their signal.

Answer 5

THIS IS A WEAK SIGNAL AMPLIFIER 500mW COMPARED TO THE 32mW YOU GET AT ANY STORE
http://icomputel.com/u/y

Answer 6

military guys are hot!