decx
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Vancouver, BC
 ·Bell Sympatico
| reply to troika4
Re: Wireless PCMCIA Cards: Milliwatt Output
How well a wireless NIC hold onto a signal depends mainly on three things, the radio output, radio sensitivity, and antennae gain. They're all different things.
Simply, more output power only helps the signal sent by the NIC to reach the AP and has nothing to do with how well it picks up the incoming AP's signal.
Radio sensitivity is the opposite and the better this is, the better the card is able to hold onto a weak signal.
The NIC's antennae gain, helps with both, by acting like a RF lens to focus it's output signal and collecting incoming signals. The higher the gain, the more focused the radiation "pattern" will be, however, this sacrifices certain areas at which the antennae is not focusing on.
Btw the crowd at the Wireless Networking forum will probably be able to handle your question with a better and more detail answer. |
