Antenna - Adapter Question

[geotraveller]

Internet access in our area is outrageously expensive, so a group of people in our neighborhood decided to band together and share service.

After being added to the network - the host neighbor appears to have a wireless g router - we took it home (we are the only iMac in the hood and live a house away) but can't reach the signal. Someone suggested we get an antenna.

I went to several places. One sales rep told me they didn't have one in stock but to get a Hawking High Gain Antenna. Another sold me a Belkin Wireless N Adapter - which despite his assurances to the contrary -my iMac won't even read.

I've been looking at Hawking products on the Internet and have found several for Macs, but don't know enough about them to make a good decision and would appreciate some help answering the following questions:

1. What is the difference between an adapter and an antenna?
2. Does anyone have any experience with any of the following Hawking products and can suggest one that would be appropriate for this use?

Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Network Dish Adapter for Mac Users
Hi-Gainª Wireless-150N USB Dish Adapter for Macs
Hi-Gainª Wireless-300N USB Adapter with Upgradable Antennas for Macs
Hi-Gain™ 7dBi Omni-Directional Antenna for Mac Users
Hi-Gain™ 12 dBi Directional Indoor Window Antenna

3. Any other ideas or product suggestions?

Thank you in advance.

 

[wootdawg]

1. The adapter is the part that has the wireless chip in it, the antenna is just that... the antenna for the adapter. Some adapters include an antenna built in, while others have external antennas.

2. I've used two aftermarket products with the mac.


The Hawking Wireless-G USB Adapter with Removable Antenna for Mac Users. This works well, but depends a lot on what antenna you're using with it. I used a super cantenna, and it works really well. I also used the super cantenna along with the signal booster from hawking and that adds even more range.

I also have a ENCORE 802.11n Wireless USB Adapter. It doesn't officially support mac, but it's based on the ralink RT2870 chipset, which has mac driver support from ralink. I installed the driver and it works great on my system. The downside to this device is that it has no external antennas and no antenna connectors to add a high power and/or directional antenna to it.



The newest products hawking makes are the wireless n adapter with removable antennas and the wireless n dish adapter. They are probably your best picks. If you don't want to use your own antennas with the adapter, the dish would be the most simple and effective solution. I'd recommend newegg as a place of purchase, unless you can find them for sale locally.

3. Another possibility would be to get two routers(wrt54gl, etc) that have removable antennas and can be flashed to 3rd party firmware (dd-wrt). With this you could set up a WDS network between your homes. This would require much more work and money however.

 

[geotraveller]

Thanks

Wootawg,

It may not be appropriate to do this, but thank you for the time you took to put this response together. I appreciate it.