[cnarayan]

I have a Airport Extreme Base station with a Modem and antenna port. and I am wondering if I should get the Dr.Bott Extendair Omni Antenna to plug into the antenna port for better range at 54 Mbps. I am not sure if this antenna increases the range at the higher speed or not. Anyone here know about this ?

Thanks,
dru

[dab007]

Originally posted by cnarayan:
I have a Airport Extreme Base station with a Modem and antenna port. and I am wondering if I should get the Dr.Bott Extendair Omni Antenna to plug into the antenna port for better range at 54 Mbps. I am not sure if this antenna increases the range at the higher speed or not. Anyone here know about this ?

Thanks,
dru

I just got my ExtendAIR Omni and I think it maybe a waste of money. Did not see a big gain. Not for a $100 and it sure is not 3X better.

[sensorfreaky]

Originally posted by dab007:
I just got my ExtendAIR Omni and I think it maybe a waste of money. Did not see a big gain. Not for a $100 and it sure is not 3X better.

I absolutely agree. I tried it and returned it.

For most people's needs, the Dr.Bott Extendair is a total waste of money. It seems that it only extends the UNOBSTRUCTED range of the base station. While this may be great for large auditoriums, warehouses, aircraft hangars, or outdoors, not too many people live in such an environment. Most of us live in homes or apartments with many walls, some made with thick brick or concrete, and some multi-level. For a steep hundred bucks for an antenna that doesn't do much, you can almost justify buying a second base station to bridge and extend your network that way. At the very least you get another USB port to add more printers to your home network and another cool looking piece of white plastic with an appple logo and blinking lights sitting on top of furniture pretending to be table decor.... and this is the alternate route I took with better results and added versatility.

[escher]

Originally posted by sensorfreaky:
For a steep hundred bucks for an antenna that doesn't do much, you can almost justify buying a second base station to bridge and extend your network that way. At the very least you get another USB port to add more printers to your home network and another cool looking piece of white plastic with an appple logo and blinking lights sitting on top of furniture pretending to be table decor.... and this is the alternate route I took with better results and added versatility.

Great discussion! I thought that the $100 ExtendAIR antenna was a bit steep too. And the alternative of a second base station, as sensorfreaky points out, is excellent. I never thought of it in these terms.

fancy ABS + antenna = $250 + $100 = $350
regular ABS x2 = $200 x2 = $400

Assuming you don't need the modem, it's a no-brainer to get the extra ABS for only $50 more.

Escher

[CatOne]

Originally posted by escher:
Great discussion! I thought that the $100 ExtendAIR antenna was a bit steep too. And the alternative of a second base station, as sensorfreaky points out, is excellent. I never thought of it in these terms.

fancy ABS + antenna = $250 + $100 = $350
regular ABS x2 = $200 x2 = $400

Assuming you don't need the modem, it's a no-brainer to get the extra ABS for only $50 more.

Escher

Errr... but don't forget you need to get the second ABS out there... are you gonna run a cat 5 wire 100 meters out there?

[sensorfreaky]

Originally posted by CatOne:
Errr... but don't forget you need to get the second ABS out there... are you gonna run a cat 5 wire 100 meters out there?

AE base stations do wireless bridging to extend their range... where do you figure in the 100 meters of cat 5 wiring? In my experiences, I was able to increase the range my network more with two base stations versus the omni antenna.

The Omni antenna extends the range of the base station by about 100 feet at most on a good day without any major obstructions. That's it. The second base station does a little better and without any extra cat 5 cables (and not 100 meters of it that's for sure). The first base station connects to the internet via cat 5, while a second base station only requires a power connection for wireless bridging.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by sensorfreaky:
AE base stations do wireless bridging to extend their range...

Can you do wireless bridging with an old 802.11b-based AirPort network? I don't feel like buying new AE cards, but I might buy another base station to extend my range...

[sensorfreaky]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Can you do wireless bridging with an old 802.11b-based AirPort network? I don't feel like buying new AE cards, but I might buy another base station to extend my range...

I haven't tried it with 802.11b cards on other computers (although I don't see why it wouldn't) because my macs both have the newer AE cards, but as long as you have two of the newer AE base stations, you can do wireless bridging between the two to extend your network. I don't think the older snow base stations can do wireless bridging with a newer AE base station. I'm pretty sure you need two of the newer kinds. But as long as you have two AE base stations wireless bridged, I don't see why any other PC's or macs using 802.11b cards wouldn't be able to join the network.

[dab007]

I'm sending back the ExtendAIR back very uphappy with the range. I could not see any change in range. I will get another base. For those who are thinking about get it don't waste your money. You will be very unhappy with it.

[donny31]

Originally posted by dab007:
I'm sending back the ExtendAIR back very uphappy with the range. I cound not see any change in range. I will get another base. For those who are thinking about get it don't waste your money. You will be very unhappy with it.

Do all of you have the extreme card and the extreme base --I talked with Dr. BOTT rep and he said that they have to be the same in order to work properly.

[sensorfreaky]

Originally posted by donny31:
I talked with Dr. BOTT rep and he said that they have to be the same in order to work properly.

Well that makes the ExtendAIR even more useless than I thought it was. The AE base station was designed to be backwards compatible with 802.11b computers (especially since TiBooks, iBooks, and older iMacs can't accept the new AE card). Why would anyone pay $100 for an antenna that doesn't follow the same route of backwards compatibility that the unit it was made for was designed for. Defeats the whole purpose if you ask me... unless you have money to burn and plan on overhauling your home network by buying new computers that all do 802.11g.

[I Bent My Wookiee]

well I was sorta in the same boat. I have a netgear wireless router and I wanted to extend the range. I found a couple airport access points but they actually cost more them my wireless router. So what I did is just run some ethernet cable to the other end of the house and bought another router to use as an access point. Costs less then a repeater and I can use it as a second router in the future if I ever needed to.

[niji]

posted by dreilly1:
Can you do wireless bridging with an old 802.11b-based AirPort network?

graphite and snow base stations can not do wireless bridging.