this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Would a good antenna fix my wifi? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by hallettj@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
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It's a story as old as time. I moved into a new place with great fiber internet - but the modem is in the garage, my desktop PC is not, and the place is a rental so I have limited options for making modifications. The signal is not bad, but I'm getting dropouts.

Since the PC and router are fixed in place I thought maybe a directional antenna or two would help? 5GHz directional antennae are kinda scarce which makes me wonder if I'm on the wrong track. Does this new "beamforming" thing supersede directional antennae?

I have 802.11ax (a.k.a. Wi-Fi 6) on both sides of the connection. Maybe I could upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E and give 6GHz a go? Maybe that would be worse due to the intervening wall...

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[โ€“] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

5G MIMO beamforming with a grid of 400 or more antennae, is great. WiFi "beamforming" with a dozen or fewer antennae, is only marginally better than none at all.

For LAN, the best would be a Cat6 cable. You could acquire or build a WiFi directional antenna or two, but that's more of a DIY hack than a real solution (fun, but sub-optimal).

[โ€“] hallettj@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

That's good info, thanks!