External (Outdoor) Antenna on 3 Antenna Router

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htpc_user

[H]ard|Gawd
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How does it work when using an external antenna with a router that has 3 antennas? Just connect to any 1 of the inputs? I have a friend who is trying to do some long range networking so the outdoor antenna will be directional. Will this work or do you actually need a router that only has 1 input?
 
I think it would work just fine. You have to be careful with the cable length and impedance, though. He might be better served putting a tiny router like this next to the directional antenna, and run ethernet from it down to the main router.
 
One concern might be how the 3 antenna router used them. If it auto switches channels between antennas to improve signal strength, you could find it changing the parameters on the port connected to the directional antenna in order to improve the link between a laptop 10' away since it probably has no way to know that port and antenna won't help. This could be worse if the router is a multi-band router since the directional antenna is probably single band.

2nd on the dedicated router. A one port one band router is probably the best way to go to limit the number of things to check if the long distance link has problems.
 
If he is doing point to point, make his life way easier for $100 and pickup two ubiquiti nanstation locos
 
Grentz said:
If he is doing point to point, make his life way easier for $100 and pickup two ubiquiti nanstation locos
Click to expand...

The problem is he doesn't have any control over the 2nd point. A friend of his told him he can connect to him but he's not going to upgrade his equipment so he can do that and my friend doesn't want to spend an extra $100 to do it for him.

He'd spend $100 for 1 Ubiquiti but from what I understand it doesn't do any good to use just 1.
 
It will not get you multiple miles with just one. But it will work better than a normal AP with an extended antenna. I have had to use this in circumstances and can personally attest to the nanostation on one side being way better than an ap with a high gain antenna.

The nanostations compensate for distance with delays which help
 
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htpc_user said:
How does it work when using an external antenna with a router that has 3 antennas? Just connect to any 1 of the inputs? I have a friend who is trying to do some long range networking so the outdoor antenna will be directional. Will this work or do you actually need a router that only has 1 input?
Click to expand...

If your device has 3 antennas, it will need to have 3 matching antennas on it. So putting one large antenna on is not going to work well because the AP will still attempt to use the other two antennas for diversity and those will not be able to hold a long range connection. You could put 3 directional antennas on it, but then on the other end you'd likely want matching antennas. For point to point, having an AP designed around a single antenna would certainly be easier. If they are thinking of trying to get more than a few hundred feet, without having the knowledge and resources available it likely won't work. (You won't just magically throw up a 1 mile point to point by roughly pointing two antennas in the same direction as each other)

Grentz: The results are likely from the fact that a bigger antenna doesn't necessarily mean that the receiver is going to be more sensitive. The client side is almost always the weaker side, so adding more gain to your AP won't solve the problem. Getting an AP that is able to pick up weaker signals by having a more sensitive receiver is going to compensate for the weak transmitting power on the client and allow for more range.
 
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