> in this case we're talking about hundred+ yards/meters instead of just a couple.
Sure but didn't you say you were using directional antennas?
Sure but didn't you say you were using directional antennas?
Rough rule of thumb, a consumer-grade directional antenna (at least at the time, maybe they've improved in the last 10yrs) will give your signal strength a one-digit multiplier (say ~8x), meaning ~7-10dB. But that n^2 means that improvement only takes you 2-3x farther, not 8x.
Here we're talking about ~100x the distance, which would need a 10000x = 40dB improvement in signal strength. AFAIK an antenna like that would cost more than the entire city block where I grew up
7-10dB matches the antennas I personally use, but those antennas are smaller than my phone. You can get a lot more out of a three foot spike or a two foot dish.
(I'm assuming 2.4GHz and hoping they're not lying about the gain.)
This story happened a bit over 10 years ago at this point. At the time of the story, the Wi-Fi bridge was already almost 10 years old -- we'd had the same equipment since I first remember getting internet at home.
That means the antennas at the start of the story were mid-2000s mid-tier consumer level equipment. I don't think a 16-17dB antenna would have been $35 at the time, in either mid-2000s dollars or in today's dollars. I also grew up in a country much poorer than the US, where $35 could feed a family for a week.
At the end of the post, we upgraded to 802.11n antennas (but still tech from 10+ years ago) which solved the problem by being newer, nicer, and having beamforming + MIMO capability which let them be more tolerant of obstacles (effectively, get more dB at the same emitted power level).
As far as what was available at the time, I can't think of a super easy way to check that far back, but I will note that the 17dB stick antennas on Amazon have been available at the same price or cheaper for about 10 years.