I've been the victim of recent wireless drops, and am in the workings of correcting such problems. I was wondering if anyone had experience with any of the HawkingTech.com products for improved signal transcieving. Things such as the directional dish and the 15dBi corner antenna caught my eye.

I've also looked at the Broadband Booster that supposedly acts as an Efficiency Organizer between the Broadband and Router. Where supposedly the largest bottleneck lies. The only problem is that supposedly it is required that the ISP gives Server-Client QoS Packet Scheduling support. I called my ISP and tried to get some answers... well, let's just say their tech support said they'd call back; about a week ago.

Anyone aware of a way you can remotely find out whether or not your ISP has QoS enabled?

Worse comes to worse I'll buy it and install it... if i dont feel a difference, return it. Unfortunately the only place in town that carries it is CompUSA and the one here is one I try to steer clear of as often as possible.

EDIT: Oh and to give an idea of what kind of obstructions I have, I live on the bottom floor on the west wing of the house and the router sits on the top floor at the eastern wing of the house. I'd say straight shot about ~150ft, a ceiling and 2 walls of obstruction.

Thats a tough enviroment for wireless. I would try the high gain antenna first.

Here is a site for amps and antenna http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/24ghz_amplifiers.php

Have not used QoS, but can be used to give prirority to services or applications.

Are you using a wireless router ot seperate AP. If Linksys try out the aftermaket Linux Firmware. You will be able to tweek your power settings to the amp.

No, unfortunately my Linksys went kapoot; stopped emitting signal further then 5ft. At the moment I'm running a DLink DI-524 Wireless Router and a DLink WDA-1320 Desktop Adapter. I know it's probably one of the less desirable setups, especially with my lack of line of sight, but after the Linksys died I needed a quick fix and it was what I had readily available.

If it has a removable antenna it will work with the high gain beam antenna. Most combo router have low gain 2dbi antenna. If you can get 1/2 way, you may try a repeter. It will help relay the signal. Shooting through the floor at the angle you indicated is causing all the problem. I hope the floor is only wood and not concrete.

Have you ran a test on the 1st floor to see what your range is?

Yes, the range upstairs is great, with my laptop I get full signal strength at around 75ft. or so with a wall in the way. I get about 50% signal strength if I bring the laptop outside to the back deck. For the most part the downstairs computer (what I'm on now) is around 20-25% signal strength with a lot of downtime.

It's of course when I leave the computer idle for a long period of time, long being 10-12 hours, for whatever reason the signal dissipates until its no longer visible to the card. Gotta love digital degeneration =) Anyway to get the signal back I actually have to restart my computer (to restart the wireless nic) so that it will even pick the network up. Refreshing network list, repairing the wireless device, ipconfig releasing/renewing all won't regain my connectivity.

From the info you have given me I would choose the High gain (15dbi) antenna route, should boost your signal a estimate of 10x. It this doen't work 100% you may be forced to set a repeter (range extender) some where on the 1st floor nearer to you problem area. Most all 11b/g limit the power to the antenna, in the range of 19 to 100 miliwatts.

I may even consider moving the router to a central location closer to your main usage area. For the problems you are having is the reason I like Seperate AP.

Another option is to use Home PNA equipment. I have set up serveral for friends in 2 story houses. This works rather well.

I'll probably try the cheapest route first, to see if that's my only bottleneck in the system. So the link you provided me above, do they sell quality 15dBi antennas? If not, where should I start shopping around?

If my problem continues after the antenna swap I can always go the next step up and get a repeater, and still have a nifty lil' antenna to go along with it =)

The link provide is for commercial equipment all top quality. And a lot of options, just need to decide what type to use. They also have inline amp's.

Alrighty, did some searching around on the page, I went with the 2.4GHz section and found:

HG2415U-PRO 15 dBi Professional Omni WLAN Antenna

Which is the dBi level you had recommended. Going over I figure must be overkill.

I will order it momentarily and post on how it goes.

Thanks again for the help Blue.

Make sure you get any adapter needed to connect to your router.

Ah thanks for reminding me, looking at the product specs it looks like it's connector is an Integral N-Female. Lemme go check what the DLinks connector is.