Hi, Im new to the forums so I will do my best not to ask any "stupid" questions
anyway..I have an emachines M6805 laptop with a built in 802.11G adapter. It works fine around my house and in my back yard, but I would like to increase the range a little. There is a park approximately 175 meters from my back yard that I would like to be able to go to and have wireless access. I cant really mount a LOS antenna because I live in an apt and I think the landlord might object, so I am looking for a way to add a more powerful antenna to the laptop. I was thinking I could disable the onboard radio and get either a usb or add on card adapter for my laptop and hook up a better antenna to it. so here are my questions:
which adapters that work with netstumbler will let me easily add an external antenna (by easily i mean without tearing it all apart and soldering)
would it really be necessary to disable the onboard adapter when I use the add on card? or will it just show up as another Icon in my connection settings?
which adapter/antenna combination do you recommend? what works best for you? anyone else tried this from a laptop with onboard wireless?
since I have the Linksys wrtg54, I was toying with the idea of using the Sveasoft firmware to increase routers signal output and maybe adding a LOS antenna to it that I could keep inside, the only problem is that between me and the park (which is on the otherside of the block) are a house, some trees and a fence, and like I said before my landlord would object to any external antennas) so the antenna would have to sit inside on my window sill. another option I have is buying another AP and larger antenna and putting them in my car, which I could drive to the park, hopefully the AP would pbe able to pick up the signal from my router and then I would be able to surf the web from the AP in my car. as long as I dont have it turned on while Im driving, I shouldnt violate any FCC regs..I think.
anyway...any suggestions or ideas would be appreaciated!