extending range of wireless

[plutnicki]

I have a TiBook that is just shy of a year old, and an Airport extreme base station. Most places in my house, my reception is fine, but in other places it is a little weak. Enough so that I'm considering finding a way to increase the my reception. There seems to be a few ways to do that.

1) Add an external antenna to the base station
2) Add an external antenna to the TiBook
3) Buy a wireless card

Each option seems to be within a few dollars of each other. I never use the PCMCIA slot, so loosing the use of it wouldn't harm me in the least. I don't do wireless ANYWHERE but at home. Options 2 and 3 mean I have to have something sticking out of or on the TiBook. I transport my book daily, so that bothers me a little as I could see something sticking out getting damaged. Option 3 would allow me to increase the speed of my connection to 801.11g, but plain old b is not a bottleneck in my network.

On the surface, it seems like option 1 would be the best bet to solve my problem. Anyone have any experience with the external antenna's on the Airport base stations (I got the one with the modem, so I have a port for it). Will it help as much as options 2 or 3...

Thanks!

...Jim

 

[parrothead]

I have an external antenna on my Tibook. It hasnt helped at all with its poor reception. I would say that an external antenna on your airport is the way to go.

 

[rtdunham]

boosting TI wireless

if you have a home network, try putting a linksys wireless access point on your network as far away from your airport base station as possible.

I found that the linksys access points produce a vastly stronger reception on my TIPB than my (standard) airport base station. And they're not that expensive.

terry