Augh! Once again I’m on the road and have a crappy wireless connection in my hotel room because the signal is too weak. I get around this problem at home by using a high gain directional antenna on my router to allow it to go through several walls to reach the back patio. Does anyone make a cardbus or USB adapter for 802.11b/g that will take a coaxial antenna connection?
Yeah, they exist.
I know Orinoco cardbus’ do it. I think their USB adaptors do it as well.
Of course, I’ve never seen an Orinoco in retail stores, or at least, not in Canada.
Generally, with a USB adaptor and a long enough cable, you can generally find a better signal somewhere, and a long usb extension cable is much easier to find.
Some hacks that appear to do this
Orinoco Cards at CDW
This one is limited to B speeds but seems to do exactly what you want connection wise- 2511 CD PLUS EXT2 (200mW)
As less expensive and involved solution it might be worthwhile simply to take along a USB port wireless adapter with external antenna wired in. Typically the much greater flexibility in placement vs the fixed PC card type antenna can give you a few extra dB of gain in difficult signal situations.