Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

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Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

I've had quite a lot of experience by now with different wireless antennas.
First i had a normal omni antenna, which you can find behind an usual router. it has very bad range, only about 1-2dBi maybe, which is under 100m in radius.

My next antenna was a small directional antenna with 6dBi gain i think. i was able to log into network from 150m and signal strenght was very bad. with rain or snow it got lot of disconnects. there was no obsticales on the way, exept few trees and 1 window (yes one, cuz my antenna was outside and AP was inside of a building). there was also road in middle, but traffic did not effect the signal. so 6dBi directionl is nothing special.

Then i bought 9dBi directional antenna. with that i was able to connect into that AP (150m away) without any problems at all. so 9dBi is not bad, but still only 150m.

I also tried to make an antenna out of an old copper pot or something. i drilled a hole in bottom and put the cable thru it. so outside of the cable touched the copper pot and inside wire, i twisted into the 2.4ghz turns. it did detect a lot of networks (more than even my 9dBi directional), but it seemed to be omni and also it was very unstable. so connecting into network and using it was quite hard. It detected networking from 150m too and was able to connect, but it got lot of disconnects.

Now ive been testing with 9dBi directionl + TV dish antenna (65cm x 75cm). I pointed the wireless antenna right into the TV dish. actually to make sure that angle is correct or close as possible, i put it in front of the horn (tv reciever horn). First i did not got any boost at all, but it seems that it is some windows problem.
I used "wifi hopper" and "network stumbler" to scan, but it seems that signal strenght does not change in those. i have to totally disable my wireless network adapter and reenable to see changes.
Now i did quick test and it seems i was able to connect into the AP that was very unstable without the TV dish antenna, so it seems that it does have some kind of effect now.
I've googled a lot about it and it seems that with that big tv dish antenna as booster, it is easily possible to get ranges like 3-5km. so obviously there is something very wrong with my combination.
I also noticed that drivers have lot to do with signal strenght and stability. in linux signal seem to be more stable than in xp.

I will keep testing and post the best combination here. however i think that it is best to buy some 24dBi directional parabolic (dish) antenna. 24dBi is quite maximum you can get.

Q: why is 24dBi quite maximum ?
A: it seems that it is illegal to use big tv dish antenna to boost your wireless signal. so i guess this is why there is no commercial antenna that go beyond 24dBi gain (maybe theres 30 or so, but best ive seen so far is 24dBi directional)

On one site they said that record for the range is about 150km with about 1m x 1m dish antenna...
I guess the most important part is to find the best place for the dish and then point wireless directly into it.


If you have any experience on this field, then let me know. i would like to know what im doing wrong that my dish won't boost my signal beyond even 1km. cant even get networks from 300m away on some reason


UPDATE:
i figured it out with the parabolic antenna (dish). the angle is vital. if its off even by 1mm it can greatly lower or boost signal. i used kismet to monitor beacons. it is very frustrating and annoying to find the right angle. so this is why its best to buy some 24dBi antenna or a professional mount. it is nearly impossible to get the angle right with duct tape or just holding it in place. also the parabolic antenna seem to have quite narrow beam. if i move the parabole just 1cm i can easily get disconnected.
I keep testing and see what i can come up with.
I think that a laser pointer can help, just not sure how, but if im able to figure something out it can point out the right angle or maybe some other kind of light source could be useful too to get angle right.

I do not have an omni antenna right now to test with, but in theory omni should have better effect with parabolic antenna than the directional, because you do not have to point omni directly into the dish under right angle.

UPDATE:
it seems that antenna has to be firmly in place, so it means if you hold it in your hand, then it won't get stable signal at all. I tried to point it on possible AP by holding it, but it was very unstable.

UPDATE:
I tested omni antenna in front of my satallite dish and it seemed to detect more networks, however they was very unstable, so if you have GPS and want to mark the APs, then omni+dish is good choice, but for connecting it doesn't work so well.
maybe it was because i was using a USB adapter instead of my PCI adapter, USB adapters are way weaker usually and cause this, that its unstable.
I can tell for sure once i'll make wire and connect omni antenna on top of it and put it in front of dish.
so far i only used USB extension cable and put whole USB adapter with omni antenna in front of dish.
Attachments
wireless antenna 1.JPG
6dBi gain directional antenna, 2.4ghz. opened
(682.03 KiB) Downloaded 1346 times
wireless antenna 2.JPG
9dBi gain directinal antenna, 2.4ghz. opened
(620.41 KiB) Downloaded 1346 times
IM000609.JPG
my 9dBi antenna pointed into tv dish antenna
(703.24 KiB) Downloaded 1346 times
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by redfootagebooby »

@Sethioz If we drill a hole in a pot and solder wire into it, what signal we can receive? i mean free to air signal, obviously but how can it be connected to laptop? i am fond of antennas lol

I have a LNB with a dish, i desire to get and study all the signals that exist in the air..
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

pot and wire wont do, you must first understand the frequency. this is why exist different size and shape antennas. you cannot capture any wireless (2.4ghz) signal with a tv antenna. its just not happening, not even lil bit.
think of it as cogs. you cant use big and small cog, they just wont fit.
however dish and pot alone are different story, they can focus the signal into one place. this is why i used dish. its only purpose is to focus the signal into one place. i had copper pot that indeed boosted the signal a bit.

what is LNB ?
to capture and study all signals, you need different equipment. wireless cards can't capture anything but 2.4ghz range.
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by redfootagebooby »

LNB is like a coffe cup. it is used to catch the signal.
I had a dishtv antenna , i got it from it. It is capable to connect with satellite NS-226
when i hack my KAON STB.. connecting it with RS Port.
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

you mean that small thing that is on the satellites "arm" ? that is the antenna itself for tv, this will not capture wireless.
KAON STB is a tuner you mean ? i have SKY HD digital tuner, but havent hacked it yet, dont have proper equipment. anyway that goes offtopic already. if you have some good info how to hack tuners (satellite channels), make new thread.

if you really want to test wireless, you need 2 laptops and one with the detachable antenna. go into some big area, some field. put one laptop in place, then with other just start going further, until it loses the signal. one laptop have to be setup as gateway / access point. then you just make modifications and see if you can still detect it from distance.
with properly set satellite dish, you should be able to get signal from like 3km away, maybe more.
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by redfootagebooby »

Kaon is a STB, came with DishTv.
There is a serial cable that can be connected to Rs-232 Port via PC, so you can either re-program it or download hacked Firmware for that STB, so your limitation had been gone. You can access some features such as Conax, that are obstacle in watching channels.

I have not programmed, but i got it from Rapidshare many years ago,
Hacking STB is so fun, All credit goes to Google Search.

I used Reshacker to hack firmware for my Chinese Ipod. I replaced all bitmaps from the same size bitmaps that i have created myself and it was so fun. When i turn on IPod, i could see my name, that was impossible to do using options.
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

enough of tuners, this is going way offtopic. start new thread if you want to discuss tuner hacking (could use one myself)
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

here's my new dinosaur antenna :)
havent tested yet tho, but specs say 3km range. it uses some RF cable that is massive, i dont have proper connecter, but will test in 1-2 days and see what this beast is capable of.
http://sethioz.com/pictures/24dbi%20wif ... ntenna.JPG
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Re: Wireless Antennas - testing and boosting signal

Post by Sethioz »

i just setup that beast antenna. there is down side and up side. down side is that its very directional, 5 degree angle is the part where it goes further than like 100 meters, however if you manage to point it exactly on the station, its amazing. i got 288kb/s out of the station that was usually 30kb/s download or less. it DID went up to 150 with my 8dbi antenna, but it was just once.

this one seems stable, however using it in room .. is a problem. its too big and heavy. im using camera / camcorder 3 leg stance for it and its on my sofa. it wont even fit out of my window.

ill get GPS in few days, going to point it straight on station and see the damage it can do :)


UPDATE:
after testing, i had enough and i looked for a wifi scanner. found inSSIDer which looks quite good. it refreshes after every second and also it overwrites gay 7 default piece of junk. gay 7 is win 7 ofc if you didnt know. so in gay7 = win7 when you press that refresh junk button, nothing happens. sometimes station is not even in range and it still shows it. its complete rubbish in gay7. so anyway, inSSIDer forces gay7 to refresh it too. after testing a while, i think i got the antenna into best postion, but it seems like its gay7 that is gaying itself up. it works after i disable and enable wireless adapter or reboot, but after while it gays itself up. so its not the signal, its gay7 gaying around.
what gayness ... it has serious issues with networking. those gay ass monkeys at microSHITsoft never prolly tested wifi. they prolly connected to the test station that was right next to pc and said "oh cool it works" ... so when signal is poor, but still works fine, it just starts to gay up. it tries to gay itself and always succeeds. i jsut cant find any other word for this ... it just keeps doing something on its own. i mean how fucking hard can it be to just CONNECT ! and stop doing other shit .. in linux it works fine while gay 7 just messes up ..


UPDATE

ive been testing for about 2 weeks with different hardware and software. so far what works best is, obviously, my 24dbi grid antenna, however it is extremely important to have proper cable. i suggest you NEVER build your own, since it never gonna be as good as premade in factory. i just took one end of cable connector apart, since i had a feeling that its not properly connected. i stripped more cable and put it tigther between the plug (its a screw on plug). no i got 420kb/s out of the station i mentioned before.

however my edimax wireless utility / card is not working properly, trying to solve that issue. it has 2 antenna sockets, but only one is active on some reason.
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