[Cu-wireless] Re: External antenna's for di-614+?

[niteshad at whopper.de]

Hello Ronald,

Two places to start for commercial antennas are www.demarctech.com and
www.fab-corp.com.  If you're just wanting to extend the range of the DI-614+
you want to stick to omni-directional antenna designs.  demarctech markets a 9
dBi omni for about $50-60.  We're starting to deploy this model of antenna
in CU-wireless, however, we have no word yet on field performance.  

Pretty much all antennas available on the market use a standard
N-connector to connect to a length of coaxial cable (we use LMR-400).  In order to
connect the external antenna to the DI-614+, you'll need to buy an N-connector
to reverse-SMA pigtail.  These cost between $10-20.  

If you're looking for high-gain homemade designs, www.guerilla.net has
plans for the 10-dBi vertical co-linear array, and www.trevormarshall.com has
plans for the 15-dBi slotted waveguide antenna.  Neither of these antennas
are rated by the FCC, however, so if people around you start experiencing
problems with their other 2.4 GHz devices, you have no recourse but to
discontinue the use of the home-built antenna, typically.  

Another point to consider is your intended application of the 614+ and its
antennas.  If you live in a multifloor dwelling, and want to use only one
access point, you want to use relatively low gain antennas so that the
"wireless cloud" extends up and down between floors.  If you want to create a
cloud on only one floor (e.g. a ranch-style home) and want that cloud to extend
over a large horizontal area, high-gain antennas (typically 8 dBi and
greater) are what you want.  

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to
ask.  

regards,

Mark

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