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Wireless Hacks for G4 PowerBooks?
NunDLess asks: "G4 PowerBooks have absolutely dreadful wireless range due, I've been told, to the fact that the internal antennas are underneath that slick Titanium case. Has anyone heard about a way to set up an external wireless antenna on a PowerBook? I've been looking for supported PCMCIA wireless cards, but haven't found one with Mac OS X drivers."
Height isn't probly that much of an issue. The radiation pattern on the base station is roughly spherical (well probly more like a bloated torus).
.. I haven't heard any reports about the new tiBooks.
The titaniums definatly have problems though. Side by side with my Pismo (previous powerbook model) the tiBook consistantly has two less "bars". Both cards are mounted internally.
It is my understanding that the rev. 2 tiBooks have slightly better range than the rev. 1s
I haven't heard of anyone doing this but I belive the antenna itself is flat, it seems like you might be able to mod the case to get the antenna on the outside. Though it would probly impact the tiBook's good looks.
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the simplest solution is to just use the internal airport card with an external antenna. just plug a wire (with the proper connector) into the airport card, bypassing the internal antenna. route the cable near the edge of the laptop, dremel a small hole, poke the cable through, get an adaptor for those larger antenna cables and buy/make yourself a better antenna. I hear pringles cans work good for longer distances.
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Anyone know if you can use a wireless card (such as Airport or that WirelessDriver with another card) and use IPSec? I refuse to use wireless unless it's over IPSec. Oh, and since the Airport card is an Orinoco Silver card relabeled, can I just buy one and plug it into the Powerbook's internal airport slot and it will work? I can get a Orinoco card for cheaper than an Airport card and I dont want the external antenna, preferably.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
It really is pretty bad. I've used my TiBook in 3 different locations. At work even with several high gain antennas (on the base side), the TiBook always had much worse range than the G3 Wallstreet's did.
It was so bad at home that I opened up my airport and added an external antenna as to try and help performance. Its just a small Lucent 2.5db that I had laying around. It helps a bit, but really its the laptop that needs the better antenna.
At both my last house and my current home, the TiBook has only been able to get roughly 30ft from the base station when there are any walls involved. I've never had a situation where it has a long line of sight, so I can't say what that would be like.