[DevNine]

Hi,
I have a powerbook with an airport extrem card.I'm wondering if it is possible to add an external antenna via a pigtail to the airport extreme card ? Anyone every done it ? Or does anyone know a usb 802.x card that I can use with macstumbler or istumbler ?

[Phanguye]

yea you could drill a hole in your computer and run a wire out of the laptop to an antenna and just not use the internal antenna... or you could start by getting kismet to work on OS X.. then worry about wardriving

[ghporter]

The AirPort Extreme card is NOT the same form factor as a PCMCIA card; it's a mini-PCI card. It has NO antenna; the antenna is in the Powerbook's case. The antenna you've got is really good, and for practical purposes, it's more than adequate for what the card is designed for.

Most people who do casual "discovery-type" wardriving get by fine without any special, external equipment. A friend, using his Pocket PC and a compact flash wireless card, pointed out to me three different neighbors running wireless networks; networks I hadn't ever noticed. You'd be surprised at how good a normal laptop with its normal wireless card (AirPort or otherwise) does outdoors.

However, if you're serious about wardriving, why not get a laptop that runs Linux (for which all the serious wardriving and intrusion software is native) and then buy an appropriate PCMCIA card, with the appropriate external antenna connector, to connect your Pringles-can antenna to. Not to sound cold, but to me this sort of application sounds devious at best.