position of wireless router

[Spawndude]

What is the best location for a wireless router to get a better signal to other rooms in the house?

a). Near the floor
b). On a shelf about half way up a wall
c). Mounted near or on the ceiling.
d.) other

I've noticed several office complexes and hospitals in my area have wireless antennas mounted on the ceiling and pointed toward the floor.

Didnt know if this was for a better signal or just to get them out of the way.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

the antennae are omni-directional unless you get a lateral or uni-directional antennae for special purposes. most mount them on the ceiling, the important thing is to put it where you get the best signal buy placing them in an area that will set you up with the least interferance (walls, floors, etc.) use the included software and do a site map to determine the best location for your wap.

 

[JackMDS]

What you see on the on the Ceiling is usually good for the Wide area bellow it. I.e. not for the whole building.

It is hard to give you a solid answer, good location is depending on the specific envioroment.

You probably better off to start with: "On a shelf about 3/4 up the wall, and away from the wall"

 

[ktwebb]

In as open and area as you can get it, preferably elevated but not butted up against the ceiling. This is really important if you only have one dipole (antenna) and aren't able to use diversity with your antenna set. Multipath occurs most frequently when the antenna(s) are near large objects. A shelf is a generally a bad place to place your AP, unless your using a pigtail and have the antenna(s) elsewhere. As suggested in both posts, testing will be your only way to tell for sure what the best location is for your AP.

 

[azev]

I am thinking of getting a used aironet1200 for my house. Would it be better to mount this thing on the ceiling near the skylight in my house ?? basically that is the highest area in my house and it is open because of the stair and the skylight??

Thanks

 

[JackMDS]

I have a one floor house, the living room has a cathedral ceiling, and all the rest of the house is basically around the Living room.

A Ceiling Antenna is installed few feet bellow the Apex of the ceiling, it covers the whole house and 60? around the outside. (The Wireless Router is near the computer, the Antenna is connected with extension coax).

In an other setting, a ?normal? two floors house. The AP sits on a high pedestal near the staircase in the hallway. The AP is connected to a Wired Router with long CAT5 cable and covers most of the House and almost nothing outside. Initially when it was placed in the computer room it covered only the Computer room and direct rooms next to it sideway and above.

Both installations needed additional work and material (i.e. more money) in top of the initial buying of the Entry Level hardware.

People buying Entry Level Wireless for $20-$80 and expect to go to the ?Moon? with it are at best Naives.

 

[ktwebb]

"I am thinking of getting a used aironet1200 for my house. Would it be better to mount this thing on the ceiling..."

If you get a 1200, unless you live in a very large house, you should be phat. Best AP you can get. True 100 mW radio and top of the line receive sensitivity. You'll still need to test for the best possible location but if you get that AP then you "should" be golden. I've streamed video over 500 feet through two walls with that AP, albeit with 100 mW Cisco 350 PC cards in the laptop . Just real media over the internet so take that with a grain of salt but as long as you have decent client cards with your setup the house would have to be very large house or placement/location extremely poor to not cover a house. Middle of the house as you can get and with decent path's in all directions. No aquarium or hot water heater right next to it for instance.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

when did the fcc bring back 100mW for 802.11? a few years ago I read a white paper saying only 30mW was allowed on cards (shortly after it was implemented you couldn't buy a new pcmcia or pci 802.11b card that wasn't 30mW), and 100mW for AP's, if they did bring it back that is soooo nice. 30mW cut the distances in 1/2 from what we were getting with the old aironet equipment.

 

[ktwebb]

I had never heard that, read it, or been told by any Cisco reps. That must be why they went to 30 mW when they introduced the 340 series cards. I just thought they wanted to sell more AP's cause the 340 AP's also had 30 mW radios. Both went back to 100 mW with the 350 line of gear. Can't remember the exact timeframe. They still don't have the range the old Aironet 4800 cards and AP's had. THe throughput sucked but the cell coverage was outstanding.

Senao has had 200 mW cards for a while.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
when did the fcc bring back 100mW for 802.11? a few years ago I read a white paper saying only 30mW was allowed on cards (shortly after it was implemented you couldn't buy a new pcmcia or pci 802.11b card that wasn't 30mW), and 100mW for AP's, if they did bring it back that is soooo nice. 30mW cut the distances in 1/2 from what we were getting with the old aironet equipment.

You could always hack a WAP11 or a BelkinAP to 100mW. I did, and it works great!