[geeks] bridging networks with wireless

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 01:14:24PM -0400, velociraptor wrote:
> I have not had this problem with the Hawking using their utility for
> connection.  My signal strength is reported at around 80%, but it's
> connected with the antenna down on the floor @ a reported signal
> strength of 20%.  I will do some searching and see if I can track down
> info as to it's support in other OSes.

The biggest problem I know about with PCI WiFi cards is the antenna.
Since a computer is opaque to WiFi signals, the exact orientation of
the antenna is very important. If you are not careful, you can end up
with the computer blocking the signal.

Note that at those frequencies polarization is important, the angle of
the antenna should match that of the transmitter (router, AP).

I have had good luck with D-Link DLG-122 USB dongles. There are at least
two versions with the same model number, I think the one you want is Revision
B. It has an RaLink chipset. D-Link provides Windows drivers, RaLink  
provides open source drivers for Linux and compiled drivers for MacOS.

They come with a nice little desk stand that lets you put the dongle
where it gets the best signal. I never use them, they are too useful for
desktop USB ports, I use a regular extension cable and stick the dongles
up with double sided tape.

If you are a Windows user, IMHO you really need to upgrade to XP/SP2. I don't
know if the WiFi support can be applied separately to an SP1 system, but it
is far better than any of the utilities that I have seen that come with the
cards and dongles, and beats by a mile most Linux systems and third party
drivers for MacOS.

If you use MacOS and have a card that is not supported by the Apple drivers,
but is supported by IOExperts, I suggest you buy their drivers. I had bought
them for a PCMCIA card that was not supported for free on OSX and they worked
well. I since upgraded to a better card, and put the card on a shelf.

Last night I stuck it in a Wallstreet running OS9.2.2 and after finding
the free drivers (derivatives of the Wavelan/Orinoco drivers) lacking. I
installed the OS9 version of the IOExperts drivers and it used the same
activation key.

They lock the key to the serial number and make of the card, not the operating
system or computer. Good work!

The card is an EnteraSys (part of Cabletron) that uses the same chipset
of the Orinoco cards, but does not id itself properly to use them.

MacOS 9.2 supports the cards that properly ID themselves as Orinoco/WaveLan
cards, OSX does not. 10.3.3 on up supports Broadcom cards, OS9, does not.

Someone on a Linux list I am on commented on a recent Gnome program that
makes WiFi easy, but I can't remember what it is. Since I only run Linux
on servers I filed it away.....

Geoff.
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