DG834G + External 14DBI antenna

mbeylis

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Good Day. I am trying to set up a wireless network with my neighbour and myself, we are at most 50m apart. My setup is as follows. My Netgear Dg834G router sits in my lounge, roughly half way between my neighbours PC room and my PC room. I have 2 ethernet cables running through my roof to my pC room from the router. I have attached a 14dbi external diretional antenna on my roof which points at my neighbours house. The length of the cable from the router to antenna is 10m. Despite this configuration my neighbour still only gets a very poor wireless signal which comes and goes. Please help, what am I missing.I know for a fact that the 14dbi antenna I have used to connect to machine previoulsy which were 2km away. There are some trees and plants, and obviously walls between my neighbour and myself but I have place the external attenna higher than these pointing down. My neighbour has a mecer wireless network card in her PC to which I have added a 7dbi D-link antenna. Please can someone give me some assistance here as I am now frustrated and out of ideas as well as baffled. Thanks Mark
 
10m cable from your router to your antenna is WAAAY to long!
 
Also, you both need similar power antennas on each side, as her 7Dbi would have less power than your 14Dbi

As bboy says, try and reduce the length of the antenna cable.

Have you tried the stock antenna's for both pieces of equipment?
 
If there is no road between your house and your neighbours house then you could always run a 50m ethernet cable between the houses. My next door neighbour and I have done this and we have a 1 gigabit connection which is way better than any wifi setup and a fraction of the cost aswell. Just took a few hours running the cable.
 
Not much I can do about the 10m length cable. The router sits inside my house and the antenna on my roof and this is about 10m in distance.

Yes I have tried the stock antenna with both these devices and no joy

There is no road between our houses but a ethernet cable seems very untidy, how did you run it to make it look neat, I'd have to have it hanging in the air for part of the way. Besides with a 192K /384K ADSL line what use is 1 Gigabit LAN connection. As long as she gets signal then thats fine as not matter how fast the LAN connection is her Internet connection is still limited
 
What would you suggest the length of the cable between the router and external antenna be at most?
 
30cms.... 10m will kill all gains u receive from the antenna

ure probably better off with the aerial downstairs.

or . if you can... get power upstairs.. put router and aerial close together and run a big long cat 5 cable down
 
Was thinking of putting the ADSL router and 14DBi antenna in my roof, that way I could reduce length of the cable between the two. Thing is I already spent like R75 just for that connector for the cable to router (rip off if you ask me, know where I can get these connections cheaper?) and R60 on the cable (dont mind that expense). I was also thinking of extending my neighbours antenna to her ceiling but once again need another one of those connections for the cable to the wi-fi card. better yet do you know where I can get a short cable already made for a good price. i stay in Boksburg, Johanesburg
 
The connectors are unfortunately quite expensive...I suggest getting from Miro, they are reasonably priced.
 
Aw cummon! .. LMR-400 has a 0.22dbm loss per meter! ..

I ran a 3KM link on 12dbi Yagis and still got -65dbm THROUGH 15mtrs of LMR-400. My AP was a DLink 614+ running at 17dbm (50mWatt)

Think wisely.. LMR400 is R25 per metre! and the connectors are ~R60 each
 
Still that means if I go with my orignal 10m cable length idea then I need to fork out and additional (25 X 10 + 60 = R310) for a LMR400 cable and connector and still I am not garunteed that it will improve my signal strength. Do these places that make these cables have a money back garuntee so that I get them to make the cable and it doesnt work that I can then return it? I think for now I should just be satisfied with the poor constant signal that my neighbour less than 30m away gets. I do however plan for the future to share this wireless conection with other people who are about 2km away and guess I will need to invest in the cable for then and probally split the cost between all of us. I really though though that my Netgear DG834G router on its own with standard antenna would have been strong enough to cover the 30m distance
 
Have you tried going through all of the available channels until you get a noticeable performance increase? I have several links coming off my roof, and know for a fact that certain channels just will not work, or will be very poor.

Try channels 1 to 13 - changing both sides of your link, until you find a good one.
 
mbeylis said:
Still that means if I go with my orignal 10m cable length idea then I need to fork out and additional (25 X 10 + 60 = R310) for a LMR400 cable and connector and still I am not garunteed that it will improve my signal strength. Do these places that make these cables have a money back garuntee so that I get them to make the cable and it doesnt work that I can then return it? I think for now I should just be satisfied with the poor constant signal that my neighbour less than 30m away gets. I do however plan for the future to share this wireless conection with other people who are about 2km away and guess I will need to invest in the cable for then and probally split the cost between all of us. I really though though that my Netgear DG834G router on its own with standard antenna would have been strong enough to cover the 30m distance

your easiest would be - Get a Tuppaware box and put your AP inside it on the roof. Every wall the signal goes through halves it ... so minimise that aspect. Get height ... on top of a cupboard, inside the ceiling etc.... If you have a Tin roof, then you are doomed :-P
 
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I like the tuppaware box option - think I'll look into making a bit of a more weather resistant box though. I have tried changing between the 13 available channels on my router. I cant really set the channel on the wireless card, it seems to auto-adjust to the channel my router broadcasts on. Anyway, none of the 13 channels make much of a noticable difference. Get very poor singal on all channels
 
Any ideas what the range of the wireless DG834G is with the standard antenna which I think has a 4dbi gain. Would it cover the less than 30m from the router (if I put it on roof in box) to her PC considering she has an external antenna with a 7dbi gain
 
mbeylis said:
Any ideas what the range of the wireless DG834G is with the standard antenna which I think has a 4dbi gain. Would it cover the less than 30m from the router (if I put it on roof in box) to her PC considering she has an external antenna with a 7dbi gain


Should do it without any problems...
 
I would have thought so too but to date no luck. I had the DG834G in my PC room about 50m away from my neighbours PC room and no joy. Problem is that there are bushes, trees etc in the way as well as our homes walls. Thats why I went with the external 14dbi antenna, to get above all the trees, which I then ran with the 10m cable to my router. I will try taking the actaul router onto my roof and with the standard antenna and see if this makes a difference. thanks
 
mbeylis said:
I would have thought so too but to date no luck. I had the DG834G in my PC room about 50m away from my neighbours PC room and no joy. Problem is that there are bushes, trees etc in the way as well as our homes walls. Thats why I went with the external 14dbi antenna, to get above all the trees, which I then ran with the 10m cable to my router. I will try taking the actaul router onto my roof and with the standard antenna and see if this makes a difference. thanks


If you use RG-58 or LMR-195 cable, then its a waste of time as 10mtrs will kill the signal. better use a short cable and put the AP on the roof.
 
The timing of your question is amazing considering I was researching exactly the same situation on Sunday. :p

I also have the DG834G and was trying to Google info on Wifi distance.

What is the max distance one can expect from a 7dbi, 12dbi and 14dbi antenna respectively if the 2 houses are practically in line of site ?

Thanks
 
dualmeister said:
The timing of your question is amazing considering I was researching exactly the same situation on Sunday. :p

I also have the DG834G and was trying to Google info on Wifi distance.

What is the max distance one can expect from a 7dbi, 12dbi and 14dbi antenna respectively if the 2 houses are practically in line of site ?

Thanks

http://huizen.deds.nl/~pa0hoo/helix_wifi/linkbudgetcalc/wlan_budgetcalc.html

on a 7dBi to a 12dBi antenna.. at 15dbm, you wont get 4KM ... but u should get below 3Km without a problem
a 12dbi->12dbi maxes out at 5km on a 15dbm transmitter (theoretical)
 
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