A friend is on holiday, staying with her parents in Spain, and has taken her laptop (a Powerbook G4, about three years old) with her. She’d like to be able to access the internet through wifi, using available wireless access points in the neighbourhood of her parents’ house.
Her brother is currently there, and his machine sees several nearby networks, some of which are strong enough signals to allow a usable connection. But her G4, while it sees some, lists their power as low, and will not connect.
It seems that the antenna on the G4 is internal. Moving the computer around the house doesn’t make any difference.
Her brother leaves tomorrow, and is taking his computer with him, leaving her with only the G4. She’s desperate to have internet access from the place she’s staying, and I’m at a loss as to what to suggest.
I thought there might be some sort of cheap, standalone device that boosted all signals in the wifi frequency range, receiving and retransmitting, but I can’t find anything online like that.
If there is some kind of gizmo that could help her out, it would need to be readily available (she’s in the city of Leon, northern Spain, hardly a metropolis), and should only require basic technical know-how to install.
I’ve seen devices like this wireless range extender in general merchandise stores like Wal-Mart around here (in Las Vegas). They aren’t too expensive, somewhere in the neighborhood of $40-$100 depending on brand, how much of a boost it gives, etc.
ETA: Do a Google search for “WiFi range booster” or “WiFi range extender” or “Wireless range extender” and it turns up a number of similar products, some standalone devices and some intended for installation in a desktop computer. Hopefully one of them will be available nearby.
I just wish I could find out why everybody I know seems to pick up wireless access from their neighbors, etc. and I have trouble picking up my wifi signal from down the freaking hall of my own house!
I know nothing about macs, but this does work on PCs:
Plug in a wireless adapter with an external antenna connector, and use a good (preferably directional) external antenna. Turn off the built-in wifi adapter. Not sure what an apple compatible card costs, but for a PC they are quite a bit cheaper than the range extenders mentioned up thread.
Excellent point, which I forgot to mention. External USB WiFi adapters, particularly the ones that come with movable and/or directional antennas (or at least a movable antenna plus a port for attaching a directional antenna if you can find one) have in my experience had a lot better range than the WiFi adapters built into my laptops.
If your sister can’t find a range extender, she could always just buy an external USB WiFi adapter and then I bet she would have no problem getting a connection. It would almost definitely be easier to find one of those than a range booster, and likely cheaper (depending on the model, the store, etc., of course).
Before you suggest this particular one to your friend, be aware that this product increases the signal when it is coupled with the access point to boost the broadcast signal. It doesn’t help reception unless the owner of the access point uses it to boost the signal. If the owner of the broadcasting WiFi access point is cooperative, by all means it would help.
But it sounds like the PB G4 owner is looking to steal…um…borrow… bandwidth from an unsecured unsuspecting access point, and what she wants is better reception. To get better reception, a directional antenna is probably the best way to go; it’s pretty easy to find sites which will help you cobble one together.
Many thanks to all. I was in chat with my friend last night, and she’s going to try to get hold of a USB adapter today. I just hope she knows how to disable the built-in one - even if I knew enough to talk her through it (I don’t know Macs) I would have to do it via phone, on an international call to a Spanish cell phone. Ouch.