The calculation of the power of wireless hardware and antenna is a very complicated discussion and you need a very good calculator. Everyone keeps asking me the right solution and I always recommend using an external antenna no matter what solution you choose. I have taken some time to prepare an overview of how to evaluate the power of wireless hardware and simplified our online store to put the amount of power in dBm on each product. The important thing to remember is dBm is a logrithmic value and each 3 dBm gain reflects a 100% increase in power. I have provided a quick overview to help everyone understand the WiFi world a little better. The computer manufacturers are concerned with battery life and generally built in WiFi is horrible at connecting in the outdoor setting. Anyway- here we go with the lesson on WiFi power:
OVERALL POWER OF EQUIPMENT:
Wireless professionals measure their output of their solutions in decibels or the short term for wireless power(dBm) and you need to know how to calculate this to compare solutions. You need to add up all the components of your wireless installation to come to the total power of your installation. Your wireless device and the antenna add power while the wire and the connectors lose power(dBm). Here is a simplified example:
WiFi device in dBm:
(convert the power of the WiFi device from Milliwatts(mW) to decibels of wireless power(dBm):
200 MW device : 23 dBm
Plus the gain of antenna
10 dbi antenna: 10 dBm
Total power before connectors and wire: 33 dBm
Minus
30 feet of lmr solid core cable: -3 dBm
Minus connectors at each end: -1 dBm
Total loss : -4 dBm
Total power of your installation: 29 dBm
An excellent quality installation should provide 30-35 dBm of gain and connect to a commercial grade WiFi provider at 2 miles. A 30 dBm power installation is 1000 mW of power of 1 watt.
WHAT IS THE POWER OF MY COMPUTER’S BUILT IN WIFI?:
The mini pci chipset built into most computers is 30-60 mw of power and provide or 14.8 dBm of power.This is inadequate to connect beyond 200-300 feet.
Here is an example of a mini pci card-you can see it is very small and the antenna connected to it can be very poor. An external device and antenna is always better.
ANTENNAS:
The power and quality of the antenna is crucial. Purchase an exterior
antenna that has been specially manufactured for the marine market. A
regular antenna without UV protection will degrade quickly and its
performance will deteriorate quickly. Purchase an onmi antenna with
8-12 dbi of gain so you do not have to overpower the antenna with
amplifiers.
AMPLIFIERS:
Amplifyers should not be used in a quality installation as they amplify noise, cause interference and degrade quickly.
CABELING:
Use a solid core copper cable with no splices. The cable should made at
a certified cabling facility to avoid poor crimping in the field by
technicians. Very few technicians can adequately crimp cables so avoid
this at all costs as it is very time consuming to route cable.
Stranded cables should not be used as the loss in signal and power is
much larger than solid core cable.
SCANNING UTILITY:
In most marinas there are multiple networks available so ensure that
you have disabled your internal weak wireless device and enabled the
utility that comes with your more powerful wireless hardware. This will
greatly increase the performance of your installation.
You can purchase a wide variety of WiFi hardware solution from our online store. The power of each solution
is provided in both dBm for you easy use.
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