Internal antennas are used for ordinary access points and the chances are you are no stranger to those.  However, most people haven’t considered external antennas for fear that they will be too costly and time-consuming to set up.  Often people are unaware of the benefits of external antennas so this week we’ve been looking at the advantages and disadvantages of external antennas and have found some interesting info.  External antennas are great for use outdoors and can have a huge impact on the overall network performance by increasing directional accuracy.

Firstly, let’s brush up on what types of external antennas are out there.  Omni-directional antennas are useful for outdoor spaces that are large in size and cater to big numbers.  However, semi-directional antennas do exactly what you would imagine.  They direct the network to different areas and range in degrees which mean they can cover a specific area.  The downside of semi-directional antennas is that they are not so great for large areas since they are highly focused and often come out of something like a dish.  They have a very small range but can be powerful.

An Azimith antenna pattern is what you can expect to use with an external antenna.  Understanding this alongside knowing how the WiFi signal moves around the space you are working with and being able to mentally visualise it will hugely help in the deployment of the outdoor antenna.  It is essential to mount the antennas properly and take the time to get the right angle.  It’s also crucial to consider the spacing between antennas to avoid connecting two antennas to one access point.  The exception to this rule is if you are using a DART connector which can handle it but for the average external antenna avoid this at all costs.

Wi-fight against external antennas? Hopefully this blog post has given you a bit of insight into external antennas so you can learn to love them like we do!