Please help me find an 802.11g PCMCIA/PC Card with external antenna

  • Thread starter Thread starter OhioGuy
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OhioGuy

Recently, I went on a trip where we stayed at various hotels. It came to
my attention that my laptop's mini pci based wireless card must be failing.
At the very least, it underperforms. While at certain hotels it would seem
to work ok, at others it would not. It never got a very strong signal, and
often would connect, but not let me send/receive data for more than a minute
or two.

When I ran the card's diagnostics, it told me that the card's onboard
memory failed. Being internal, this thing doesn't have an antenna, and I
think that is part of the problem as well. At one hotel, they brought me a
D-Link wireless bridge, which I connected through the LAN port. It solved
the problem beautifully. The problem is, the wireless bridge is bulky, and
has to be plugged in to the wall itself, so it isn't all that portable.

What I'm looking for is an 802.11g PCMCIA/PC Card based solution that has
an external antenna, just like most PCI wifi cards for desktop PC's do.
This would let me try it as is, and add on a better external antenna if I
deem it necessary later. It would still be small enough to fit in my laptop
bag without having to remove it from the laptop, and wouldn't require an
external power supply.

Trouble is, I can't seem to find such a thing. I can find several older
802.11b PCMCIA/PC CARD wifi cards with external antenna hookups, but can't
seem to find this in an 802.11g newer variety.

Why is this? Can any of you out there point me to something that would
work for me?


Thanks!
 
OhioGuy said:
Recently, I went on a trip where we stayed at various hotels. It came to
my attention that my laptop's mini pci based wireless card must be
failing. At the very least, it underperforms. While at certain hotels it
would seem to work ok, at others it would not. It never got a very strong
signal, and often would connect, but not let me send/receive data for more
than a minute or two.

When I ran the card's diagnostics, it told me that the card's onboard
memory failed. Being internal, this thing doesn't have an antenna, and I
think that is part of the problem as well. At one hotel, they brought me
a D-Link wireless bridge, which I connected through the LAN port. It
solved the problem beautifully. The problem is, the wireless bridge is
bulky, and has to be plugged in to the wall itself, so it isn't all that
portable.

What I'm looking for is an 802.11g PCMCIA/PC Card based solution that has
an external antenna, just like most PCI wifi cards for desktop PC's do.
This would let me try it as is, and add on a better external antenna if I
deem it necessary later. It would still be small enough to fit in my
laptop bag without having to remove it from the laptop, and wouldn't
require an external power supply.

Trouble is, I can't seem to find such a thing. I can find several older
802.11b PCMCIA/PC CARD wifi cards with external antenna hookups, but can't
seem to find this in an 802.11g newer variety.

Why is this? Can any of you out there point me to something that would
work for me?


Thanks!
Click to expand...

First of all, if you are not transfering extremely large files, I doubt you
would notice the difference between "b" and "g". During busy hours like
mornings you would probably not even get true "b" speeds anyway because of
the limited bandwidth. I usually carry just a PCMCIA 802.11g (no antenna)
card with me on trips because in places where the signal is marginal, it
seems to do a better job than my enternal wireless and it doen't take up
much room in my laptop case. Sometimes hotels and motels just do not do a
very good job in distributing the WLAN throughout the building. Many try and
get by using 'home' type networks rather than commercial wireless solutions
like Buffalo etc and the installers are anyone who can do it on the cheap.

Ed
 
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