Recycling Acer PIFA WiFi Antennas. Suggestions?

Hi;

I recently got tired of the unreliable wireless-n router I was using for simple AP functions (disabled NAT, DHCP, Firewalll on it) and decided to take one of my half-broken laptops, throw Linux on it, and make my own wireless-N wifi AP.

That was the easy part. I can say that I now have a WiFi AP that will push files at close to 100mbps without crapping out after a few hundred megs. However, I have a question about some antennas.

My current laptop doing the job is a Dell Precision M6300; I chose it becuase it has more power than an Acer I've got sitting here. The only downside is the wireless antennas in the Dell are pretty lousy; where the Acer had the PIFA rig that threw a really great signal around. The Wifi card in the Acer was also better suited for AP mode; so it went in to the Dell as well.

I removed the PIFA antennas from the Acer and decided to hook them up. Currently; I basically have them attached to the wall and have the wires just running from the bottom of the laptop. This seems to work pretty well and gave me an extra 5db on the opposite end of the house.

However, I'm sure there's a way I can do this more more efficiently than just sticking them to the wall (or maybe I can't). I'm not looking to direct/focus the signal in one direction; I do in fact want it to be omni-directional.

If anyone has any advice/tips they can give me; it'd be greatly appreciated.

-Jay

 

I think mounting on the wall in the manner you doing is probably the best (in terms of propagation and reception) you can achieve. PIFA are omni (more or less) and with multiple elements to your makeshift antenna, should provide a decent pattern. For sure, much better than any internal antennae you may have been using.

If me, I would hang a poster or picture over it and call it a success. Just use heavy duty nylon string - not metal picture wire.

BTW, smart repurposing of your old hardware.

 

Thank you. I'm currently unable to work and in need of money; have been parting out various laptops I've accumulated from people going "hey, this is broken; you can have it for parts". My Wireless-G AP from my ISP was pretty slow and lousy; and my reprogrammed router just wouldn't sustain high speeds. I actually had several people tell me what I was doing was a bad idea; that the laptop would never perform like a full-fledged AP. Joke's on them; I push close gigs and gigs of data at close to 100mbps over it from file-servers and not so much as a hiccup; error; or anything.

I wasn't sure if the PIFA's needed a bigger ground plane to work with or if the element itself was enough; the area behind the laptop screen is covered with a metallic foil and the antennas are mounted right above it and use a metallic looking tape. I don't know if it's actually conductive or not since it has glue on one side. I do know antennas need a good ground-plane to work. It still hasn't fully solved the problem with my TV on the other end of the house; but I'm thinking it's purely a lousy antenna in the unit. Of course; an actual dedicated AP may put out more power than a wlan card; I'm still digging through the drivers to see if I support an increase in TX Power.

I still need to do things like play with the placement; get them up a llittle higher on the wall and maybe further apart; I'm limited by the length of the wire that attaches them to the WLAN card. Right now they're just stuck up there with double-stick foam tape. I don't care about how ugly it looks; I like that industrial/DIY look personally.