Question for the techie folks out there...

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SargeW

SargeW

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When I set up my exterior antenna, interior antenna, power booster, and router in my stick house, one of the requirements was to have enough seperation between the inside and outside antenna's to prevent feedback between the two.  I thought I had enough, like 20' or so but I was still having questionable performance from the inside antenna and router.  I later placed some foil faced cardboard as a shield between the inside antenna and the outside antenna. The inside antenna is mounted in the attic crawl space.

It seemed to help with the signal strength quite a bit, and speeds improved inside as a result.

My question is, in the RV my router and power booster is mounted in the closet in the rear of the rig. The exterior antenna is mounted on the ladder just about 2' away. Would there be a benefit in shielding the wall that separates the two antenna's? 

The reason being that sometimes even in decent signal areas the signal from the air card mounted in the router is sketchy,  and simple pages like this forum will struggle to load.  I am  wondering if the relationship between the router and exterior antenna is interfering with each other. 

As a bit of background I am running W10 on my laptop and have Norton installed as Internet Security.  Your opinion's guys?
 
I'd doubt it. There is an inverse square law at work here. Perhaps you could mount a telescoping post (flag pole) to get the antenna further away (higher),  and improve reception at the same time.

Ernie
 
I suggest that you install a channel sniffing app on your computer and do a site survey every time you move.

A site survey will show you the least busy channels and those are the ones you should use for your local router.  Assuming you can change the channels on your router of course.  If not it's a moot point.

I use ''Inssider".  Get it here : http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/inssider.html

It works well in W10.
 
The interference is between the inside transmitter (wifi) and the receiver/amplifier for the outside antenna. If the signal is strong enough the receiver may be overloaded and fail to discriminate  between signals. Since radiated signals decrease in strength inversely with the square of the distance between transmit antenna and the receiver, there is a point where the receiver will discriminate properly and the desired signal will get through.

Adding a grounded metal shield between the transmitter as you did will also reduce the strength of the signal at the antenna but may add reflected signals that interfere with reception at your wifi device (obviously other reflected signals may also get around your shield).

Ernie
 
If you haven't already... go back to square 1, one router, one antenna... try to map the signal strength at various locations of interest to you, the insider app would be a great resource for this.  Or, do a speedtest, to see if the signals are getting where they need to go... speedtest.net ...Then add one extender or whatever you are trying to add and repeat the first measurements.  Then add the next antenna or whatever and repeat the measurements again.  Assess where you are WRT to where you want to be in terms of usability at locations of interest to you. 

Shielding and multipath RF can get very complex, very quickly.  Interference issues are even more complex.  Most of the measurements are in some version of a dB scale.  Every 3 dB is a double in signal strength. 

Another approach could be to modify the antenna position and orientation... these antenna patterns, or signal strength pattern, change quite dramatically with position and angles.

simplicity can be your friend...

 
The Android app Wifi Analyzer can be a big aid when working with Wifi. It'll show signal strength, channels and more. I use it not only to find good locations or judge signal strength, but even to find other wifi signals in the area, and whether they're protected.
 
Is this a Wilson booster system. If so Wilson gives the specs on how much separation you need from the outside to inside antennas. These are on Wilson website. This distance varies with different systems. Usually the greater the "broadcast range" of the inside repeater antenna the greater the separation.

Moving the inside antenna to get the recommended separation is the best solution.
 
The Inverse-Square law... This is simplified but basically what it says is this Every time you DOUBLE the distance, the signal strength drops to 1/4 what it was.

(The signal strengh is reduced as the distance increases by the ratio of the SQUARE of the distances)

Is this Wi-Fi, or is it Wireless? There is a differnece.. On Wi-Fi there is a very simple way if you are using an external antenna and wi-fi "modem" (Adapter) and an internal Router,, As I do.

But if it's wireless... That won't work. You need to either use the CLIP method inside  or move the internal antenna, and the Wireless device, to the front of the RV.

But this is one of the cases where the difference between Wireless (Cellular tower to your device) and Wi-Fi) router to computer) are 100% different beasts.
 
Ok, trying to ingest this info. My setup is a Verizon USB air card, plugged into a Cradle Point MBR95 router. The air card is wired to a Wilson booster, and a wired Wilson mini ground plane Wilson external  antenna.

I tried adding foil to the area surrounding the router and booster. No significant difference was noted using an Android app that measures signal using a db meter. 
 
I downloaded the Insider App on my computer first. When I went to open it, the app wanted me to pay a fee to unlock it. I uninstalled it, as I won't buy an app without playing with it first to see if I like it.  I then downloaded the WiFi Signal Analyzer App for my phone. It works well, and displayed the traffic on neighboring channels.

It was not overly crowded on any channel, but the parks WiFi was very strong on neighboring channels. What I did do was go into my routers Dashboard and changed a few settings. The router allowed me to expand the routers working band from 20 mgz to 40 mgz, if available.

What I couldn't find the switch for was to change the channel that the router was working on. It displayed the channel, but couldn't modify it. 

When I got up this morning I ran a Speedtest first thing. The speed had about doubled from what I was getting on previous tests. Now I am wondering if that could have made that much difference in performance.
 
Now I am wondering if that could have made that much difference in performance.
Click to expand...

Potentially, yes. Weak, and especially intermittent signals generate a LOT of handshaking/admin traffic, just to try to keep user traffic intact. A stronger/persistent signal eliminates the excess overhead, which takes up a lot of bandwidth.
 
SargeW said:
Ok, trying to ingest this info. My setup is a Verizon USB air card, plugged into a Cradle Point MBR95 router. The air card is wired to a Wilson booster, and a wired Wilson mini ground plane Wilson external  antenna.

I tried adding foil to the area surrounding the router and booster. No significant difference was noted using an Android app that measures signal using a db meter.
Click to expand...



These new Vz cell phone plans allow use of a hotspot on your regular cell phone for up to 5 devices...  no air card, no router, no antennas are needed... Maybe you have an unlimited data plan or something or I'm probably missing something important?  IIRC, two phones and 3 GB of shared data/mo for $85 + taxes.  extra gig is $10
 
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