WiFi and Trucker Antenna

[Nick Parker]

Good day all. A question just crossed my mind and was wondering if any of you might have a solution.

I just recently purchased a Wilson Cellular Trucker antenna and was wodering if I could turn it into a WiFi antenna as well??

I have a HP laptop with an internal card. However, looking to purchase a card with an external antenna port to get some range while out on the road.

I've seen many kits from Radiolabs.com with cards, amps, and antenna's...but it would be very nice to use the big new antenna I just bought and save a little money.

Any ideas???

Thanks in advance!

Nick Parker

 

[John Diel]

I rather doubt that it will work properly, but will probably be better that no external antenna.

The little 15db mag mounts aren't really all that expensisive and they work out well. You'll be better off with a dedicated antenna anyway as the connections are pretty delicate.

I also believe the frequency spread is a little different for the 802.11 series cards as opposed to Cell frequencies.

 

[John Erwin]

Agreed; WiFi operates in the 2.4 GHz band which is higher than Cell Phone frequencies currently in use. Connecting your WiFi card to a cell antenna will likely perform poorer than with the internal antenna setup.

I use a dedicated antenna for Wifi and get great performance with it; in many cases I can park some distance from a hotspot and get a workable signal.

 

[Laura Hedien]

http://cellantenna.com/Antennas/magneticmount.htm

I've ordered from these people on more than one occasion with no problems. Use the drop down menu after each antenna listed for the PC card to antenna adapter.
I bought the "antenna pack" with the inter-changeable antennas. I have not found a significant difference in using the smaller vs higher gain antennas.
Good luck.
Laura

 

[John Erwin]

http://cellantenna.com/Antennas/magneticmount.htm

It doesn't look like they sell mobile WiFi antenna's Laura, which is the area we're discussing.

I use a model from http://www.antenex.com/ ; good performance and quite stealthy.

 

[Jon Miller]

An easy to make home made wifi antenna for the do it yourselfers - suppose to have an 11dbi gain :

http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/double.cgi

Jon Miller
KT8NDO

 

[David Drummond]

Be careful swapping out antennas for a device that aren't designed for the frequencies that device is using when the device is a transciever like a cell phone or wifi device (this won't apply to a receiver, such as a scanner). You can get too high of a Standing Wave Ratio (SWR) which can cause the output power of the device to feed back on itself and has the potential permanently damage your device. You might not ever "notice" the difference, but your device will.

 

[Nick Parker]

Thanks for the info folks! Decided to just go ahead and buy a dedicated antenna. I'll end up having more whips than my buddy's state police cruiser but at least I can pickup signals at ALOT better ranges.

Thanks again!

Nick