[MLB-WIRELESS] External antennas for PC Cards / 100mw cards

[Nick Sibbing]

Bruce Paterson wrote:
> 
> http://www.technowarehousellc.com/technowarehouse/whanfor15and.html
> 
> Someone asked me if this antenna would be a good purchase for his laptop
> (Powerbook with Airport). He can't connect to a WRT54G access point at
> the moment, because there are 4 apartments with double-brick walls
 
> This device is a whip antenna that you position somewhere near or on your
> powerbook.
> 
> I gather you install it by disconnecting the internal antenna lead from
> your Airport card, plugging in the supplied connector and threading it
> out through your PCMCIA slot, and plugging the Whip into that.
> 
> I reckon a better alternative would be a 100mw PCMCIA card and plug an
> external antenna directly into that. 
> Are there some good external antennas for PC cards for less than US$90

Gday Bruce
The antenna connector on an airport card is just standard avaya/oronoco.
Almost any pigtail could be pushed through the pcmcia slot of a
powerbook and into the Airport card after removing the inbuilt one
(which is easy). The Ti powerbooks are notorious for poor wireless
reception. 

So if you want to keep using internal Airport card just buy a pigtail
~$30 make any kind of antenna eg cantenna ~$10. You will be heaps better
off signal and dollar wise. 

The negatives are only neatness issues. Who wants an N connector and
pigtail flopping oround their beautiful TiBook. The system shown seems
pretty neat with its velcro attachment.

The alternative is to use the Sennao card in which case you lose the
pcmcia slot anyway. I've tried this as well with a cabletron card and I
did get it to work but it took some fiddling with drivers. My problem
with it was that everything in the Apple network setup refers to
"Airport" as both hardware and software so it was difficult to check in
testing at close ranges which actual card was being used to make a
connection. But it is doable and the sennao card option is much neater.
If you don't want the antenna hanging off the powerbook you just pull
out the external card.

Hope this helps decide.

Regards Nick

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