I'm baffled by wifi. I see people quoting ranges of over 100 feet or more with wireless access points inside buildings and I can hardly stretch to 12 feet.
I've just done some tests using the following:
Netgear WG602 v1 Wireless Access Point D-Link AirPlus XtremeG DWL-G520 Wireless PCI card Netgear WPN802 RangeMax Wireless Access Point Netgear WPN311 RangeMax Wireless PCI card
With the units only 12 inches apart the results are:
Link Quality Signal Strength WG602 + D-Link 70% -29 dbm WPN802 + D-Link 60% -38 dbm WPN802 + WPN311 77% -21 dbm
Shouldn't I be getting close to 100% quality at that distance?
With the units 12 feet apart (with some obstructions) the results are:
Link Quality Signal Strength WG602 + D-Link 34% -61 dbm WG602 + WPN311 36% -61 dbm WPN802 + WPN311 31% -65 dbm
Why should there be such a drop in quality/signal at that distance? How do other people get the range that they apparently do? What sort of range/signal do you get?
I don't understand those minus figures for signal strength except that -21 is better than -61. What is the strongest signal that one can get using that notation?