Placement of router

[Thoreau]

So i just bought a netgear wireless router(the one newegg had on sale yesterday(6-23). anywho. I would like to know where would be the best place to put it in my apt. All of the walls are concrete so it makes it a big trickier. i have a rough, bad and poor "paint" drawing of my place. If i had my autocad here at work, i could draw everything to scale. I am thinking of putting in the 2nd closet(next to the bathroom)??

The blue X is where i'm thinking about putting it

[fjleal]

Where's the bathroom?... ;)
Also, where's the door? A legend would help, you know... :)

[Thoreau]

What am I, 5 with this drawing??

[kbradl1]

Where are you going to put the PCs? You said your walls were concrete. Concrete can affect the wireless signal. If you put it in the closest I would test the signal strength. I would put the router in the hallway in front of the front door. This way it has a clear line of sight to the Living and Dining Room and one of the Bedrooms.

[ghaefb]

:D great picture :D

[Thoreau]

My tower is going to be hardwired. But my roomates is going to be a wireless laptop. So i'd like the strongest singal to be in the 2nd bedroom and the living room. Almost all of the walls are concrete, Save the interior wall(where the closet is) is wood. I suppose trial and error would be the easist eh?

i draw good, :cool:

[crackers]

Yeah, looks like it. You're going to be in real doo-doo if there's a lot of iron/steel under the concrete. So, how is it living inside a Faraday cage? :D

[Thoreau]

So it arrived saturday, and i have it now, woo-hoo!! So i'm am going to try some different placements. In the closet, outside of it, in the living room, kitchen even....yo no se, je ne sais pas, i don't know. Those are good starting points though. it'll probably work the best, right in the middle of the hallway :rolleyes:

[crackers]

Sounds like you might end up needing to nail it to the ceiling.

Er, check that - glue? Nails probably won't work with cement...

[Thoreau]

i'd have to make a little box out of somthing, then attach that to the ceiling, because it does work best right in the middle of the hallway :(

[foolish]

I love this thread! The drawing is great. I have no idea how to solve your issue, but thanks for this one mate, really made my day.

[crackers]

Just be careful enough attaching stuff to walls and ceilings. You'll want to get your deposit back at some point. Or as much as you could possibly expect, anyways... ;)

[ukdelinquent]

Try putting it anywhere thats out the way and conecting an old wire coat hanger to it - you know like people do when their car ariel gets snapped of. Doing this will give you a better signal :P

Sorry only joking - what wireless card does the laptop have a.b. or g? Wireless will give you crappy speed wherever you place the router. If you are only going o use the laptop for the net/email then youll get enough signal wherevrer you put it - if you are going to be transfering huge 700mb iso files then plug a cable in and dump the wifi!

[Thoreau]

I believe he has a 'b' card. Yeah he's not going to do anything too extreme. I just have to wait now, for him to move in. I can't wait for my roomate to move out, well not so much her as her damn cat!!!

[crackers]

Another thing to consider, regarding signal strength, is something I saw on television a few weeks back. It was a template (for cardboard) that you could download, cover with foil and place over the antennas - I saw it on "The ScreenSavers" but I imagine that some Googling would turn it up. I think the increase was 10db - which is quite a jump!

[Thoreau]

yeah i was thinking about trying something wacky like that.

thanks for the heads up

[crackers]

Not so whacky - I found it, thanks to /. and synchronicity

http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html

According to the story, some British outfit is charging about $25US for the same thing.

Disclaimer: I do not know about the legality of this, even in the US, as I seem to remember it is illegal to use or modify antennas without getting FCC clearance and certification for both the device and antenna combination. However, I think if you're not killing small birds by microwaving them to death, they're probably not going to come looking for you...

[Thoreau]

oh that's great. I'll have to give that a shot.