Product Reviews

Wireless signals are often blocked by thick walls or interference. There are several ways to improve the situation, such as Hawking's Hi-Gain 7dBi antennas.

Standard wireless devices come with 2dBi antennas, so these external ones are a lot more powerful. We have reviewed the omni-directional and directional models here. They can both connect to routers or desktop cards that use RP-SMA or RP-TNC connectors (large screw-in connectors). In most cases, if your router or wireless PCI card has antennas you can unscrew, you can use either of these

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products.

We tested them on a 54Mbit/s wireless router and used an Intel Centrino notebook to test network speeds. Without either aerial, we recorded throughputs of 11.97Mbit/s at close range and 8.07Mbit/s at 10m through a wall.

The omni-directional antenna is designed to increase network coverage in a 360- arc. At close range, where it makes the least difference, it achieved 13.32Mbit/s; at 10m, 8.74Mbit/s. But it managed 8.22Mbit/s at 20m, where previously we couldn't get a signal. For homes where the wireless signal gets weaker in certain parts of the house, this could make all the difference.

The directional antenna is designed to increase wireless signal quality in one direction (an 80- arc), which is useful if you've got a single device that needs a better quality signal. You should install these devices in pairs. At close range, we recorded 13.32Mbit/s and at 10m we achieved 11.81Mbit/s. However, we couldn't get a signal at 20m using a single antenna.

The directional antenna is good value if you require one, while the omni-directional antenna is a cheap way to increase a wireless LAN's range.