ALFA Wi-fi signal enhancer

Eygthene

Eygthene

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Last year I bought a wi-fi signal enhancer:

ALFA Network AWUS036H 1000mW USB Wireless G WiFi Adapter REALTEK RTL8187L

price about £10, for my laptop on the boat and it was a great success. In places where there were only 1 or 2 bars on the signal strength without it, I was getting 5 bars (ie max.) with it.

This year I have found that my new Samsung Galaxy II smart phone is so much more convenient than having to get out the laptop, that I have been using the Samsung instead, particularly for downloading weather charts. Actually the phone is better than the laptop at pulling in the wi-fi signals, but still, I am back down to 2 or 3 bars of signal strength.

Is there any way that I can employ the ALFA with the smartphone to get a stronger signal? It has a standard USB plug, but the phone has a miniature USB socket. Of course, I have a lead to connect the smartphone to a laptop (for transferring pictures etc.) but that has a standard USB male on the end as has the ALFA. Is it just a matter of getting a standard female USB-female USB adapter or is there more to it?
 
Even with a fancy aerial, I find wifi a PITA. Okay if it's free.
What I resort to nowadays is the usb broadband system as a pay as you go connection to a telecom provider.
One of the reasons for this is that I am mobile in the summer, mainly German/Denmark/Sweden. The Swedish Telia is very good and not that expensive [around £25 for a month].
 
No, is the short answer to the OPs question. The goal is to collect the 3G signal with something better than the phone, then get that signal to the phone.

The Alfa is WiFi, not 3G, and the phone does not collect its aerial signal via the USB port, so the connection is not possible on two fronts.
 
So on 2 or 3 bars how much does the data rate go down by? I would have thought you would still have got a decent rate on WiFi. For 3g if the signal is bad then that does drop to other protocols at slower rates. If you want to boost WiFi with local hotspot you can do as suggested but the rate will be what the slowest connection in the chain even if the end device connection is fast.
 
Thank you all for your most helpful advice. I have now looked at the ALFA R36 suggested by Petehitch and Blue chip which is definitely a possibility. I am waiting for the answer to my enquiry on the Amazon site to find out how the R36 is powered and whether it will power my ALFA AWUS036H. If it has internal batteries and can itself power the AWUS036H, that would make it possible to use it with the smartphone and even to carry it ashore if necessary. If it needs a separate USB power supply (from 12volt batteries on board?) it is still possible to improve matters, but it is not so portable.

Richard, thanks for clarifying the question about the phone's USB not being the route for its signal - I guessed as much. Actually, the goal was for Wi-fi not 3G, though I seem to have also read of 3G boosters as well somewhere.

neilf39, most of the time, I am downloading with a solid 5 bars of Wi-fi signal and the charts load quite easily onto the smartphone. When the signal is down to 2 bars or so, often the download is arrested before all of the required content has appeared. I don't know what the data rate would be, but I suppose something times out. The same happens on the laptop when the wi-fi signal is too weak and with the 3G dongle, it drops the connection too.

Conachair, I would be interested to learn more about your Samsung wave y device.
 
For improved wif conenction have you checked this company?

http://uk.wifi-link.com (no connection of any kind - no pun intended!)

they seem to stock a number of high gain wifi ariels. They might be able to help with what you are after....


However if you just want to improve your ordinay mobile phone reception (i.e. not wifi) have you tried attaching an external ariel into your samsung galaxy s3? Have a look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKLa6Pg8DYA.
this (american) company seem to stock the ariels:
http://www.discountcell.com/cellular/prodcat/sagalaxy-s3_6, but i'm sure other uk companys do
 
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I have documented my onboard Wifi solution here. It doesn't retain your Alpha unit but does achieve what you're looking for and allows me to connect laptops, iphones and ipads simultaneously and has worked well for us for the last two seasons.
 
Blackberry Curve antenna

While you are on the subject, does anyone know if a so called 'signal booster' or wireless antenna will work in enhancing mobile phone signal on a boat. There are areas in Suffolk where there is little or no (Orange/T Mobile) signal.
There appears to be a 'sticker' that you put behind the battery for a cost of less than three quid, then there are arials for under £100.
This is American,which is about £20: But, anyone used them on a boat?

http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.co.uk/ws/...apbuynow&excSoj=1&rptdesc=1&excTrk=1&tto=1500

Sorry if this appears as a 'hijack', just an aside for the experts.
 
Seashoreman said:
While you are on the subject, does anyone know if a so called 'signal booster' or wireless antenna will work in enhancing mobile phone signal on a boat. There are areas in Suffolk where there is little or no (Orange/T Mobile) signal.
There appears to be a 'sticker' that you put behind the battery for a cost of less than three quid, then there are arials for under £100.
Click to expand...

The device you link to seems extremely hopeful to me. It is supposedly intended to overcome the screening of the signal by the metallic bodywork of the car. You would be far better off just getting out of the car ..... or standing on deck!

Old mobile phones very often had a socket (usually hidden by a blanking plug) to connect to a proper external antenna on a car/boat ..... but I haven't seen one a typical mobile for years. There are other solutions possible, but not at the sort of price you are talking about.
 
I was thinking about buying an Alfa R36. I have 500mW & 1000mW Alfa AWUS036H units on board. When signal is weak the 500mW unit sometimes won't connect when the 1000mW unit will. So it would be useful to share out the stronger signal between laptops.

However, I decided that this wasn't a big enough problem to merit buying the R36. I'm going to try using Windows 7 to create a hotspot from one laptop. This means my PDA, phone, Kindles and other laptop can make use of the 1000mW Alfa to pick up weak signals.

It's a free option but obviously only works when the laptop is running. I've tested it already at home and it allowed my phone to share my laptop's WiFi Internet connection.

Seems easy enough to do via command line and I'll make up a script to save typing.

Not really what the OP wants but a free way to achieve a fairly similar result (i.e. Get decent WiFi signal to a phone).
 
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