Laptop use with High Power outdoor WiFi?

[billybillybilly]

I need to use a wifi-connected laptop on a vehicle around my property. I am considering a high power outdoor wifi bridge/access point. That part is easy to understand.

My question has to do with laptop side of the connection. How does high power wifi work when the wifi connected laptop is still using the built-in hardware? Do the long ranges published by the manufacturers assume that all connected devices have special hardware, or is it really as simple as just getting a high power access point/router?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[nigelivey]

There is no such thing, the output power on any wifi kit has to conform to a maximum power level, the rest is just marketing mumbo jumbo!!

 

[bill001g]

it depends what you are attempting to do it may not make much difference. You can buy outdoor directional bridge equipment. The key thing that makes it go more distance is the "directional" part. It concentrates the legal allowed power into a single direction.

You can buy lots of different devices from a company called ubiquiti. You would connect them to your laptop via a ethernet cable. These type of devices are not meant for portable use so you would need a source of power.

 

[billybillybilly]

There is no such thing, the output power on any wifi kit has to conform to a maximum power level, the rest is just marketing mumbo jumbo!!

Thank you. My initial question is still relevant though about getting the best results from the laptop. Do you have any recommendation to get best distance performance from a laptop running ubuntu?

 

[billybillybilly]

it depends what you are attempting to do it may not make much difference. You can buy outdoor directional bridge equipment. The key thing that makes it go more distance is the "directional" part. It concentrates the legal allowed power into a single direction.

You can buy lots of different devices from a company called ubiquiti. You would connect them to your laptop via a ethernet cable. These type of devices are not meant for portable use so you would need a source of power.

Thank you. So now I have a ubiquti Unifi access point outside and I can get the laptop to the edge of the property while still reasonably working, but only if I have the laptop oriented a certain way. If I turn it around the connection gets pretty sketchy. I will try to play with Unifi antenna orientation and move it higher from the ground to get better results, but is there anything I can do on the laptop side that will help? Thanks in advance.