Er, the “wimpy antenna” is probably a monopole. Not wimpy at all. The problem is that a proper installation of a monopole requires a good ground plane. You’ll find that with proper grounding this antenna can work quite well. In practice almost as well as a dipole. Especially if it has a diversity receiver.
But proper grounding can be a pain in the rear. Tying in the the electrical ground can be dangerous and likely to add substantial noise. Running a proper RF ground can get tedious and/or expensive.
A dipole would be just as easy to build as a “cantenna”, provide just as much effective gain, and if vertically polarized still be omnidirectional on your floor plane.
BTW - when you are talking effective numbers the stand is the dipole (dbd). But since most of those antennas you see advertised are actually less efficient than the dipole (the gain would be negative) the marketing types use a fictional standard called an isotropic antenna (dbi). The isotropic is the worse possible design in terms of “gain”. And it can’t even be built in real life.
But you have to admit making a TBM and excavating a tunnel for your cables would be an impressive DIY project
That is so far fetched c’mon!
I think your wireless setup adequately solves your problems but considering the money you spent on it a router linkage setup might have been better (i know you have another router somewhere in that house of yours).
As exciting as spending a crapload of money on different antennas sounds, it’s both cheaper and better to lay a pipe for network cabling. It’s no easy task (my father and I dug a 35 foot trench for power to go to an external swimming pool a few years back), but it has a ton of advantages.
You’ll reduce the noise you let into the neighborhood.
You’ll save power.
You’ll save money.
You’ll be able to run more than one cable into the external house, in case you ever want to do more outside.
You’ll get exercise.
And you even still get tech challenges.
Did you attach the pipes well enough to prevent leakage? (Basic… even an OK job will last you for at least 10 years)
Did you provide yourself a method for pulling and replacing bad wires? (Intermediate)
To get even better signal, you might want to look into replacing the antenna on the WAP in your house. Both sides transmit data so right now the outbuilding - house has good signal, but house- outbuilding still has spotty connection. Something to think about (and more money to spend!)
A HTPC and Xbox 360 setup video is available on the XBL Marketplace. They recommend using an 802.11a network in the less crowded 5GHz band (the 360 wireless network adapter supports 802.11a). What would your performance be like if you switched to an ABG router, or like Andrew said above, rigging up an 802.11n bridge?
Surely avoiding signal noise would be better than powering through it?
The only problem is that with these powerful antennas not only you can easily cross legal allowed limit for wifi spectrum (which is much lower in Europe and quite generous in australia/usa) but if you get too powerful equipment, you might also create too much noise for your neighborhood.
so my advice is to always look for directional antennas and always make sure that the strength is “just enough”, otherwise you’ll be decreasing quality of someone else’s connection which might motivate them to also buy better equipment and therefore decreasing signal/noise ratio for whole neighborhood.
I wonder how well the adapters that let you network over your house’s power lines compare. Your game console has to be plugged in anyway, so being tied to an outlet for the network isn’t a problem like it would be for a laptop.
I had the same problem with my ps3 and zbox original+xbmc and the best solution for me was PLC. 802.11g is enought for my laptop but dind’t do job for my consoles. I’ve forget all the wifi problems with intensive network usage.
I’ve just finished tweaking my network to improve my 360’s bandwidth (both for Media Extender purposes, and to access data on my WHS).
I spent a while playing with various Wireless-G antennas and TX settings, but even the best get nowhere near the maximum throughput of 802.11g. I ended up moving to Wireless-N and buying the WGA600N Wireless-N bridge to plug my 360 into. (Which costs the same as the G adapter for the 360!)
Currently my network is a WRT54G that plugs into my cable modem and provides both DHCP and a Wireless-G network. I then have a gigabit Airport Extreme plugged into the WRT54G which provides a Wireless-N only 5GHz network.
My Windows Home Server and Media Center both plug into the AE router. Our laptops use the Wireless-N network, as does the 360 via the aforementioned bridge, and my Wii/DS/iPhone use the Wireless-G.
I’m considering replacing the WGA600N with another Airport Extreme and then setting it up as a WDS station. This should improve performance a bit, and also give me network sockets for my PS3 and Wii without the need for an extra hub.
Wow… all this to avoid running a cable? I ran a cable to my media center room and put a router behind it which now connects to TiVO, XBox and a cable that goes to an upstairs router. Granted I only had to go through one wall.
But, the fastest and most secure network is still that which travels via cable! You don’t happen to have FiOS TV? If so, you can get a second NIM to bridge the MoCA network back to enternet to connect to your XBox. Even if you don’t have FiOS you can use these… you would just need two. That is assuming you have one CATV cable near your router.
I would also agree with one comment above… take a look at the wireline extenders.
Hope there’s heat in there!