802.11 RF Amp

MikeLRoy writes "Linksys has announced a signal amp, to be available soon, for their wireless ap's/routers. While many people have been using commercial rf amps hacked onto their ap's, linksys now has a commercial solution!" I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service.

Comments

Anti-WAP?

[Motherfucking Shit]

I wonder when ISPs are going to stop soft-pedaling the anti-NATing provisions in their terms of service

Check SpeakEasy DSL. Not only don't they care about NAT, they don't mind wireless connecting sharing either, so long as none of the people (ab)using your connection are violating the AUP. As with any ISP you're responsible for anyone using your connection. In other words, setup your WAP, secure it to trusted friends and family only, and you're A-OK.

And I'm not even a SpeakEasy customer. I wish RoadRunner would implement similarly "with-it" policies...

NAT is hard to detect

[Gothmolly]

Unless you start snooping into the data packets, looking for User-Agent strings, etc (if you're NATting 2 different OSes behind it). You can make educated guesses (why do all TCP connects come from port 61000+?) but you really can't KNOW if someone is NATting.

That's a nice-looking amp...

[BitHive]

...but ours goes up to 11.

God forbid.

[mwillems]

The entire point of 802.11b is that it is low power, allowing a lot of use in a small area. If my neigbours all start to boost their signals (both ways of course), my 2.4 GHz RF environment is going to be be useless. X.10, cordless phones, bluetooth, 802.11b all share this frequency (and I have all four of those at home...)

In the UK, until recently 802.11b was illegal for commercial use because it was full, making it useless. My car the other day would not open in a high-RF environment (near Toronto's CN tower).

Can we please keep this frequency useable? Amplifying will kill it. An RF signal of this type can carry 30 miles very easily, making it useless if we all start amplifying.

Michael (radio amateur, VA3MVW)

Re:God forbid.

[phunhippy]

My car the other day would not open in a high-RF environment

did ya consider trying the Key?? its a nice shiny metal thing they give you with your new car :)

Agreed, SpeakEasy ROCKS

[phillymjs]

I dumped my Comcast cable modem for SpeakEasy DSL just about a year ago, and I've never been happier with an ISP.

I've never had an outage, I can (and do) run servers in my house to handle my own mail, www, etc. Their phone reps are courteous and don't suffer total brain shutdown when I mention the magic sentence, "I'm using a Mac."-- not that I've needed support beyond a little help sorting out a password issue when I wanted to configure the INCLUDED dial-up access in case I needed it.

When I needed an additional IP address last year, I called them up and had one in a couple minutes. I just upgraded my service from 608K down/128K up to 1.5M down/384K up, and it was not a hassle at all. Since my employer chips in $50/month of my ISP charges, this higher speed service now costs me $40 per month, the same I was paying a year ago for my cable modem with all of its restrictions.

To all Slashgeeks who are able: If you have a choice, go with SpeakEasy-- you won't regret it!

~Philly

more info

[trb]

That link didn't show much (at least for me). You might want to try WSB24, which points to a data sheet.

• Peak Gain +14 dBm
• Receiver Gain +20 dBm (nominal)
• Tx Input Power +5 dBm (minimum) - +20 dBm (maximum)

big deal. ydi.com and rflinx.com have quality amps

[puzzled]

A while ago on slashdot there was breathless coverage of a Linksys hardware 'hack' that raised their 30mw AP to 100mw. Some knowledgeable RF engineer took a look and it *was* putting out 100mw - 31mw in channel, and 69 mw of crap spattered all over 2350 - 2550 MHz. All that 'hack' accomplished was giving more ammunition for those satellite radio folks that want to regulate the ISM band.

Instead of building a 100mw radio with good sensitivity, Linksys is building a cheesy amp to go with their cheesy AP.

If you genuinely need some amplification I've used YDI.com and Teletronics.com amps in the 250mw to 1 watt range and not had much trouble with any of them. RFLinx or RFLynx(sp?) has come out with a 750mw amp for $200, but I haven't tried that product yet.

FYI half of the reason to deploy an amp is for the LNA (low noise amplifier) effect - besides boosting output they pump up the return signal by 10 - 14 dB. There is a real call for a 150mw output amp with a solid LNA for client side problems, but that is a story for another day.