can anyone suggest an antenna?

  • Thread starter Thread starter emekadavid
  • Start date Start date
good day, I am looking for a way to connect to networks using this modem
on my system; it is on COM1. just discovered it myself:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/wondering- what-this-ttys0-reading-means-4175420805/
I would prefer something, possibly an antenna that:
1. is a point-to-point link to a high speed link.
and/or 2. can bridge to a wireless network like wifi! possible? i
believe it is. radio.
please, i will be happy to have links or suggestions.
tnx
Click to expand...

You don't have a modem. A 16550A is a serial port.
 
You don't have a modem. A 16550A is a serial port.
Click to expand...

thanks. that's why i posted the linuxquestions.org link. thought so.
is a serial modem that interfaces with a wireless line possible? thought i saw something but you techies know better.
thanks
 
emekadavid said:
good day, I am looking for a way to connect to networks using this modem on my system; it is on COM1. just discovered it myself:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/ques...ing-what-this-ttys0-reading-means-4175420805/
I would prefer something, possibly an antenna that:
1. is a point-to-point link to a high speed link.
and/or
2. can bridge to a wireless network like wifi! possible? i believe it is. radio.
please, i will be happy to have links or suggestions.
tnx
Click to expand...

You say in the Linuxquestions thread, your model number is Compaq TC4200.

Is this the machine ?

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12138_na/12138_na.HTML

RJ-11 Port (Modem) <--- Connect to phone line, for dialup networking
This means the modem is inside your computer already.

RJ-45 Port (NIC) <--- Connect to ADSL modem or cable modem, for broadband

Optional integrated 802.11 a/b/g Wifi <--- Wireless connection to home router

Bluetooth Module (optional) <--- Suitable for wireless PAN or connection to
tether style networking, say 3G or 4G ???
This would not be my first option.

USB <--- You could connect a USB dialup modem if you want.
You could connect a USB to Ethernet (RJ-45) if you want.
Some routers even have a USB port.
This would not be my first option either.

In summary, that particular model has lots of options. And the built-in
dialup modem and RJ-11 port is the one you'd try first.

If the machine is that modern, you could try "lshw" to get more info
about what is inside. "sudo lshw" runs the utility as root. Using
"man lshw" will tell you more about it. If lshw is not installed,
the shell may even tell you what command to issue, to download
the executable.

Other programs are "lspci" and "lsusb", but "lshw" gives about as
comprehensive a list as Device Manager in Windows would give you.

Dialup networking in Linux, would involve PPP protocol as it would on Windows.
In this example, they used two packages, "wvdial" and "ppp". And
a lot of little config file changes. This tutorial is from 2001,
before better tools were available. Now, I understand there is a
"Gnome PPP", as well as "KPPP" for KDE. Modern distros also have
the accursed Network Manager, which can trash a perfectly good
network connection. And there are also control panels, for
selecting networking options, which may ease the setup of the
PPP dialup session. I wouldn't delve into a lot of script files,
unless the "automation" in your distro has failed. Modern
distros should be better at this, than the old distros where the
amount of work would be similar to the description in the
next link.

http://www.linuxjunkies.org/html/Modem-Dialup-NT-HOWTO.html#s2

You should try to get the distro to identify the dialup modem
for you, rather than drilling into "dmesg", looking for /dev/ttyS0
and the like. The hardware discovery that the OS does at boot
time, should have passed sufficient device info to Network
Manager, for the appropriate icons to be present to select
dialup graphically as a networking option.

And you don't have to use dialup. It's just the direction
you headed initially, suggested you wanted dialup networking.
But that computer has plenty of options. If you have ADSL or
cable modem/router with Wifi, you should be able to use
Wifi from the TC4200 to those equipments. Or even an
Ethernet cable in the RJ-45 hole.

HTH,
Paul
 
good day, I am looking for a way to connect to networks using this modem on my system; it is on COM1. just discovered it myself:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/ques...ing-what-this-ttys0-reading-means-4175420805/

I would prefer something, possibly an antenna that:

1. is a point-to-point link to a high speed link.

and/or

2. can bridge to a wireless network like wifi! possible? i believe it is. radio.

please, i will be happy to have links or suggestions.

tnx
Click to expand...

thanks. bookmarked
 
thanks. bookmarked
Click to expand...
I am happy that the detailed support from this forum. I have decided to buya wifi antenna for networking. I need something that can go large distances, like 10km approximately; I need it for networking practice on my linux laptop, especially the inbuilt ip tool. can anyone suggest an antenna for me..
will something like this be adequate, i saw it at tigerdirect. btw, I need something that will not tear a hole in my budget, less than 50 dollars.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=195213&csid=_61
thanks everyone. your support has been wonderful.
 
emekadavid said:
I am happy that the detailed support from this forum. I have decided to buy a wifi antenna for networking. I need something that can go large distances, like 10km approximately; I need it for networking practice on my linux laptop, especially the inbuilt ip tool. can anyone suggest an antenna for me.
will something like this be adequate, i saw it at tigerdirect. btw, I need something that will not tear a hole in my budget, less than 50 dollars.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=195213&csid=_61
thanks everyone. your support has been wonderful.
Click to expand...

Wifi is at microwave frequencies. So you could look at microwave techniques.

http://www.radiolabs.com/products/antennas/2.4gig/stage1.php

Antennas come in vertical, horizontal, or circular polarization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(antenna)#Polarization

The Wifi protocols, are designed with a certain maximum distance in mind.
In the experiments done in South America, they've sent Wifi a couple
hundred kilometers, between mountain tops. But to do so, requires
modifying the Wifi software, so the protocol doesn't time out. You'd
have to review that issue, to understand what distance to expect
under good propagation conditions (before software becomes an issue).

See the fun you can have ?

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

If you don't like the dish idea, they also make Yagi. They're used
for television. But can also be "cut" for a fixed frequency,
rather than being broadband. A TV Yagi, is meant to span channels
13-83 for example, which is a huge range of frequencies. If you use
a Yagi designed for a relatively fixed frequency (covering the
channel spacing of Wifi), then the antenna could have slightly better
gain. Generally, the lower the bandwidth, the better the gain in
the remaining frequencies. At least, with OTA digital TV showed up,
antenna designers hoped to gain a bit, by not having to make the
antenna go up as high in frequency.

http://www.radiolabs.com/Articles/wifi-antenna.html

In a quick check, the Yagi Wifi antennas are in the 16-25 dBi range.
One reason for that, could be the Yagi is "front and back fire", while
the microwave dish only fires in the front direction (no back lobe).

The benefit of an extremely directional antenna, is you can actually
avoid interfering Wifi signals from other compass points. You
can point right at your partner Wifi device. To do so accurately,
you might need GPS at both the originating site, and GPS in the
field, so you can work out the true bearing, then correct for the
compass bearing, and then using a locally held compass, get some
idea where you should be "pointing". There is a difference between
"magnetic" bearing and "true" bearing. The sites I've used for OTA TV,
provide that information for me. They tell me the "true" bearing, and
then what I'd need to use when using my compass for aiming purposes.

Considering you're on a budget, I'd take my time before deciding
what antenna to buy. And also, what the reasonable expectations would be
for performance.

Have fun,
Paul
 
emekadavid said:
I am happy that the detailed support from this forum. I have decided
to buy a wifi antenna for networking. I need something that can go
large distances, like 10km approximately; I need it for networking
practice on my linux laptop, especially the inbuilt ip tool. can
anyone suggest an antenna for me. will something like this be
adequate, i saw it at tigerdirect. btw, I need something that will
not tear a hole in my budget, less than 50 dollars.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=195213&csid=_61
Click to expand...

That omni antenna at Tiger Direct can replace an external wireless
antenna which is connecting to its wifi radio by way of a RP-SMA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-SMA#Reverse_polarity_SMA

It would have more gain than a little stubby external but nothing like
what you are imagining.

In linuxquestions, you announced a compaq tc4200

Paul asked you if this HP Compaq tc4200 Tablet PC was your laptop.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12138_na/12138_na.HTML

If so, your tablet's wifi does not have such an external antenna connector.

You are connecting to this newsgroup via GG using different/variable
Nigerian providers.

What does that mean about your connectivity plans? You are wanting to
use your tablet's wifi to connect to a far off wifi access point.

It would be better if you spelled out/ explained in much greater detail
what kind of intentions you have and what kind of connectivity is
available to you.

If a person has 'control' of both ends of the radios and their antennae,
the access point and the receiving/client device's antenna, they could
devise a cheap uni-directional antenna such as has been made with
Pringle's cans and other similar shapes which are referred to as cantennas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pringles_cantenna
 
emekadavid wrote:













That omni antenna at Tiger Direct can replace an external wireless

antenna which is connecting to its wifi radio by way of a RP-SMA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-SMA#Reverse_polarity_SMA



It would have more gain than a little stubby external but nothing like

what you are imagining.



In linuxquestions, you announced a compaq tc4200



Paul asked you if this HP Compaq tc4200 Tablet PC was your laptop.

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12138_na/12138_na.HTML



If so, your tablet's wifi does not have such an external antenna connector.



You are connecting to this newsgroup via GG using different/variable

Nigerian providers.



What does that mean about your connectivity plans? You are wanting to

use your tablet's wifi to connect to a far off wifi access point.



It would be better if you spelled out/ explained in much greater detail

what kind of intentions you have and what kind of connectivity is

available to you.



If a person has 'control' of both ends of the radios and their antennae,

the access point and the receiving/client device's antenna, they could

devise a cheap uni-directional antenna such as has been made with

Pringle's cans and other similar shapes which are referred to as cantennas.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pringles_cantenna
Click to expand...

Good day. Whoever has been following my new topics recently will realize that they are all connected towards networking. I intend investing in networking education for this year and next and presently reading series of books on computer networks, including the Linux networking guide.
My purpose after my studies is to:
1.Understand networking in its complete sense.
2.Start a networking training institute because I believe the need is slowly arising in my country, Nigeria, for networking resources.
I have a concern though. I went to the market and found that the modems that are popular are these:
a.Wifi modems but the problem is that the range is very short and I could not find a range extender in the marketer, so it would be close to impossible detecting any wireless network with it.
b.HSPA/3.5G/UMTS modems. I have never used this before and they require a SIM card installed.
My short-term goals:
1.To be able to tune my Linux system to act as a networking router, bridge or access point. The complete works.
My question is:
1.Given HSPA/3.5G/UMTS modems that require SIM cards, is this short-term goal possible?
2.Given Wifi modems and not being able to detect any network with it for short-term goals above, is there a workaround?
thanks
 
emekadavid said:
Whoever has been following my new topics recently will realize that
they are all connected towards networking.
Click to expand...

I have only been following this one topic of yours in this one group.

There are several issues in your messages here which are not related to
the group's name. One is the format of your messages and the other is
the issue of connecting to a provider as opposed to creating a local
network.

You are reading and posting to this usenet group using google groups GG.
The best way to read and post here is not with GG but by using a
newsreader and newsserver, both of which are free.

GG has a new and an old interface. The new interface causes your
messages to be posted in a bad format, the lines you quote are
double-spaced and the lines you write are not properly wrapped.

Popular news readers for windows are Thunderbird for Win7/Vista/XP or
Windows Mail for Vista or Outlook Express for XP. Popular news servers
are aioe which does not require registration or eternal-september which
does.

Re Nigerian providers: I see a number of web sites about internet
service for Nigeria and the role of satellite and cybercafes.

It is one thing/problem to achieve internet connectivity via a provider;
it is another thing to create a local network with ethernet or wifi or
both. It appears that you do not have a consistent connection with a
single Nigerian provider.

You can have a local network which isn't connected to the internet, or
you can have a local network which /is/ connected to the internet.

How you study for your future plans is somewhat ahead of how you
currently connect to the internet and how you connect to this usenet
newsgroup.
 
emekadavid wrote:







I have only been following this one topic of yours in this one group.



There are several issues in your messages here which are not related to

the group's name. One is the format of your messages and the other is

the issue of connecting to a provider as opposed to creating a local

network.



You are reading and posting to this usenet group using google groups GG.

The best way to read and post here is not with GG but by using a

newsreader and newsserver, both of which are free.



GG has a new and an old interface. The new interface causes your

messages to be posted in a bad format, the lines you quote are

double-spaced and the lines you write are not properly wrapped.



Popular news readers for windows are Thunderbird for Win7/Vista/XP or

Windows Mail for Vista or Outlook Express for XP. Popular news servers

are aioe which does not require registration or eternal-september which

does.



Re Nigerian providers: I see a number of web sites about internet

service for Nigeria and the role of satellite and cybercafes.



It is one thing/problem to achieve internet connectivity via a provider;

it is another thing to create a local network with ethernet or wifi or

both. It appears that you do not have a consistent connection with a

single Nigerian provider.



You can have a local network which isn't connected to the internet, or

you can have a local network which /is/ connected to the internet.



How you study for your future plans is somewhat ahead of how you

currently connect to the internet and how you connect to this usenet

newsgroup.
Click to expand...

was having some issues posting on GG using the web interface this morning. didn't really understand the new layout. getting used to it. sometimes, GG is more intuitive than other newsreaders but was thinking of installing one.
thanks anyway.
 
emekadavid said:
was having some issues posting on GG using the web interface this
morning. didn't really understand the new layout. getting used to it.
sometimes, GG is more intuitive than ther newsreaders but was
thinking of installing one.
Click to expand...

If you are going to use GG, you should/must use the old interface or
else you have to do a lot of reformatting to make acceptable news messages.

You get to the old interface by using the gear menu and selecting
'revert to the old interface'.

If that revert function is not available in the menu, log out and go to
the old interface front page https://groups.google.com/

and log back in. If you get redirected to a new GG, notice what address
is in the addressline of the browser and edit it to say:

https://groups.google.com/?hl=en&noredirect=true

That 'noredirect' in the URL prevents the GG webserver from redirecting
you to the new GG front page.
 
emekadavid said:
sometimes, GG is more intuitive than other newsreaders but was
thinking of installing one.
Click to expand...

If your OS is Win XP, Outlook Express is installed by default.

If your OS is Vista, Windows Mail is installed by default.

Both of those make satisfactory news clients to start. Win7 is another
matter as it does not have a news client.

Then all you need is a newsserver. eternal-september is free and/but
requires registration.

http://www.eternal-september.org/RegisterNewsAccount.php?language=en
User registration

You choose a username and e-s will send you a password which you can
change at e-s at any time.

These pages at another different news server NIN give good illustrations
about how to set up your news client of choice

http://news.individual.net/config.php Program Configuration

You can use the guides at NIN, substituting the values for e-s insetead
of those for NIN.
 
Timothy said:
"Mike Easter" mentioned:
Click to expand...
True about Win7 not having a news client. But Windows Live Mail, the
successor to OE and WinMail, can be downloaded from the Microsoft
website, and it behaves pretty much like Outlook Express and Windows
Mail.
Click to expand...

The version WLM you refer is totally unacceptable as a news client
because it cannot quote/cite with quote marks.

The only usable WLM is a 2009 WLM which can be found a few places.

It is also possible to get the Vista Wimdows Mail working in Win7.
 
Timothy Daniels wrote:
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Windows Live Mail 14.0.8089.726
"Mike Easter" denigrated Win Live Mail:


The Win Live Mail to which I refer is the version that I use right now
which came with my Dell OEM 64-bit Win7 two years ago (of which
there are later versions) and which cited your quote above. Admittedly,
it didn't include quotation marks, but I most people wouldn't consider
that as a shortcoming in a news client.
Click to expand...

Your LWM 14 is a version which quotes but current versions don't. A
news agent which doesn't quote isn't a news agent that can post anything
to a newsgroup but an initial thread message.

The absence of proper and compliant progression of all the previous
quotes creates a totally unacceptable reply -- in a different way than a
GG-new unacceptable reply.
That you are able to exorcise WinMail from Vista and transplant it
to Win7 is impressive. I tried uninstalling WinMail from my laptop's
32-bit Vista, and it wasn't even listed at being installed.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that MS originally intended (and structured) for
WinMail to be a part of Win7, but the European rule-makers didn't want
to allow it, so WinMail was 'disabled' in the released Win7.

I have never tried to remove WinMail from a Vista
 
Chris said:
"Timothy Daniels"
Click to expand...
One of the thousand or so sites with that information:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/download-windows-mail-from-vista-for-use-in-windows-7/
Click to expand...

Altho' I haven't performed either method, from my reading comprehension,
I believe I prefer the techspot site's method with its associated helper
files over the digitallife method as being more 'comprehensive'.

One, digitallife, mostly just copies Vista mail folder to the Win7. The
other techspot integrates more thoroughly.

Also, I can 'follow' the techspot plan more logically.

Techspot is a nice site. They also have a forum section with vetted
helpers for removing malware like that of bleepingcomputer, which
bleeping is pretty slow to interact and the first contact after a few
days is a 'bot instead of a person.
 
Mike Easter said:
Altho' I haven't performed either method, from my reading comprehension, I
believe I prefer the techspot site's method with its associated helper
files over the digitallife method as being more 'comprehensive'.

One, digitallife, mostly just copies Vista mail folder to the Win7. The
other techspot integrates more thoroughly.

Also, I can 'follow' the techspot plan more logically.

Techspot is a nice site. They also have a forum section with vetted
helpers for removing malware like that of bleepingcomputer, which bleeping
is pretty slow to interact and the first contact after a few days is a
'bot instead of a person.
Click to expand...

I guess a bit before the "how to" sites popped up, I just copied over the
entire
mail directory from Vista, and set the ownership and permissions correctly.
Put a shortcut on my task bar, made it the default mail handler, and never
looked back.

Chris
 
Timothy Daniels said:
"Chris S." replied:


OK, now I understand what you meant by "patch" - you lifted it from Vista
and transferred it to Win7. I thought you meant that you had made a
simple
change in Win7 to enable WinMail code that was already sitting there in
Win7.
Congratulations on succeeding in doing that yourself, though.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Never gave it a thought. As a Microsoft chosen "Beta Tester" I had to wring
out
Vista. WinMail was enough like XP's outlook express mail that I got used to
it.
Win 7s "NoMail" was easy to overcome. Don't know what I'll do about Win
8......

Chris
 
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