Wireless Strength on Internal Cards
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I have a Billion 7800n router with wireless - this has three short (about 3 inches) antennas. This is on a shelf about 3 feet off the floor.
On the pfSense box I am using an Atheros AR9287 mini-pcie card with two antennas. I have two tp-link 5dbi omni directional antennas and place the antenna on a much higher shelf about 6 feet off the floor.
The Billion signal strength is still much higher than the mini pci-e card in the box. I would have expected the Atheros to give a stronger signal due to larger antenna and antenna placement.
Just curious why really if anyone knows the answer.
Not looking at getting an AP separately.
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Just double checked my setup - my fault completely. The pigtail had a female SMA and the antenna was a female SMA as well.
Used a bit of a staple to pin bridge the two female connectors temporarily while reordering the correct cable for the card.
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Cool, I was going to chime in how it might not be as fast as commodity hardware, but truth is i have nothing meaningful to test pfSense wireless speeds against. How does it compare for you? I had to look up that router brand name as I had never heard of it. I assume lower signal strength means lesser connection speeds?
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Problem was with certain parts of the house having weak or no wifi when I did with the router before. Have not checked speed (again like yourself, not sure how to), but so far everything works as it should be family using plethora of ipads, phones etc.
Been slowly configuring my pfSense box to do what I want bit by bit and have wireless now. However, next stumbling block now is with the Sonos system. I have wireless on a separate subnet to the LAN. Sonos doesn't play nice (or at all) across subnets.