Hastings Wireless: Antennas and Access Points

2003 Dec 15 - Brian Kloppenborg

In order to establish long-distance links and provide WiFi to large areas, we are going to need some specialized antennas. For the long-distance connections, the 24 dBi direction antennas we purchased from eBay may be sufficient, depending on a variety of environmental conditions. Conversely, to blanket wide areas with 802.11b coverage, we are going to need a powerful omni-directional antenna.

We have yet to decide on what access points we will use for either activity. Right now, we have a D-Link DWL-900AP+ Client/Bridge/AP/Repeater with one LAN port, a Linksys BEFW11S4 which does almost all the same operations but has a four port switch, and a Netgear MR814 V2 which does all the standard AP stuff but does not have removable antennas. The Netgear has therefore been ruled out. We are leaning towards the D-link DWL-900AP since it is small, portable, and hack-able.