Thread: great website for wifi antennas

Originally Posted by neutral

www.fab-corp.com

figured I'd through it out there.

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Originally Posted by Gunmaster

Cool. I like those amps on the first page!

did you see the price 3,000 for a wifi amp :wtf:

Originally Posted by wkearney99

Bear in mind that you violate the FCC license for the unit if you use a different antenna on it. That you CAN physically attach one doesn't mean it's legal to do so. Combine that with wardriving or making otherwise unauthorized use of someone else's WiFi and you're asking for trouble. It's one thing to perhaps make 'innocent' use of available signals using whatever's built-in and approved for a unit. It's another thing entirely to deliberately conspire to increase the range and be caught doing so. Not to rain on the parade though, just raising the point.

First of all, why are you bringing up this can of worms.

Next, using a different antenna is not per se a violation of the FCC rules. The rules state that there is a maximum output power of the unit. Depends on the frequency, but it is between 250mw and 1 watt. Then, you can have up to a 6 DBi antenna (that is DB over Isotropic), or an effective output power of 4 watts (every 3 db of antenna effectively doubles the output power, so 1 watt, then 3db is 2 watt, then anohter 3 db (total 6 db) is 4 watts)

Now, most stock antennas are not 6 Dbi. They are probably unity gain (meaning no gain at all), so, you can safely add a 6dbi antenna to a system with out a problem. Also, the rules allow antennas above 6dbi, but they require a reduction in power, 1db for every 1db (or 1/4db for every db if the antenna is directional)

The other issues is that the FCCs enforcement is severely limited. If you are not causing interference, then you probably will never know that the FCC exists.

As far as stealing someones bandwidth, there has been talk about it being illegal, but I have never heard of it being enforced. If it has been enforced, they enforce the law regarding accessing someones COMPUTER, not there network.

Michael