USB 802.11b Adapter

**Sir_Pyro** · 12-11-2002, 05:34 PM

At first I was planing on using an 802.11b PCI card in the computer and an external high-gain antenna in my car. After talking to an engineer from a radio station though, I found that using a cell phone antenna mount to pass the signal through the glass would probably not work at 2.4gh. Now using a USB adapter on the rear deck is looking like the best option.

My question is what should I buy USB adapter wise? Any one has any experience with them? I really don't care about tech support, easy of install, or any of the other crap I can find review wise on them. All I care about is range, speed, and cost.

Belkin makes a Desktop Antenna for the PCI card I have but it says it has coverage of 590' from this antenna down from the 1800' on the PCI card’s box. I know very well that this is exaggerated from the actual performance, but still would this be better then buying a USB adapter? It looks like that puney coax cable would eat up a lot of the power from the card.

**Charliey** · 12-11-2002, 08:29 PM

USB network devices in general tend to be more problematic then PCI cards, and they use much more CPU power to operate.

Wouldnt the signal from the USB adapter still have to go through the glass?

**Sir_Pyro** · 12-11-2002, 09:16 PM

I’m running an Athlon XP 1700+, Win98 and Winamp, processor power is not really an issue. I was planing on using one of those cell phone antennas that transfer the signal through the glass to the antenna outside. It works like a capacitor but up in the 2.4gh range not much would pass through to the antenna. At least that's my understanding, unless some one proves me wrong.

**MP3DUB** · 12-11-2002, 09:53 PM

Right, but his point was usb adapter or pci adapter, the signal still has to go through the glass.

**Sir_Pyro** · 12-11-2002, 10:23 PM

Alright.... I've attached a quick pic of how I WAS going to do it Glass isn't really a problem, it's transferring it through the glass to the antenna that is a problem. Now it USB adapter or Belkin antenna on top of the brake light inside the car.

**SuperMatty** · 12-12-2002, 01:02 AM

I like how we all like to use M$ paint to make detailed diagrams in this forum

**Aaron Cake** · 12-12-2002, 09:28 AM

Something to remember is that there was a post about a year ago with pictures of a 802.11b adapter that had melted from the sun's heat. It was positioned exactly like you are setting yours up.

**MP3DUB** · 12-12-2002, 11:00 AM

I don't think there was any confusion as to the glass spanning antenna, but why did you have to mount it on the outside of the window was the question that I was trying to pose. why not just a pci card with the antenna on the back shelf?

**larkar** · 12-12-2002, 01:25 PM

I'm planning to get a 802.11b setup between my house and a friend 200 meters away, with external antennas and have read some lately...

The good thing about usb is that there is no loss in the cable between computer and adapter, so you can have a short cable between the adapter and the antenna to minimize cable loss.

With a pci you have to use a high freq antenna lead all the way from the compter, with 0.5 to 2 dB loss for every meter cable.
3 dB = 50%

So if the antenna lead is long, consider a usb mounted under the roof or something.

**Sir_Pyro** · 12-12-2002, 04:56 PM

I wanted to put the antenna were it would allow me to get 360 coverage around the car if I was going to build a high gain omni antenna. Also, by putting it above the roof I could still use Bluetooth inside of the car. That would allow me to use an old laptop I have or newer PDAs to control the computer in the trunk. War driving would be a bit better up above things along the road like parked cars. That's why I wanted to put it outside of the glass.

I decided against the bluetooth because of cost and if any one was in the back seat the signal wouldn’t get to the computer. Now I'm just going to run another cat5 cable up front for the old laptop. War driving wise, about the only thing I can think of that has a wireless network around here is my high school so what's the point?

Now that I got that cleared up, larkar seems to get why I want to use USB. Just going from were the computer will be to the brake light on the deck is about 2 meters. If that Belkin antenna dose not get 4db gain above the normal one, just getting to the antenna would eat up some of my range.

Thread: USB 802.11b Adapter

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

USB 802.11b Adapter

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions