After testing, found a great wireless router combo

[ian.hindParticipant]

I spent the last few months trying different routers, ideas, and antennas.

I’ve found what I feel is the best combo yet.

TP Link TL-WR741ND with a directional antenna.

The AirPort routers distance wasn’t the greatest, and once you start getting low signal your Qu-app refresh rate drops, and airplay starts to drop as well.

300N routers use two antenna’s which makes it a pain to use directional.

MIMO routers use even more antenna’s, even more difficult to direct a signal.

150N routers provide enough bandwidth for a good refresh rate of the Qu-apps, with only 1 antenna.

99.9% of 150N routers have internal, or fixed external antenna’s, so you can’t use a directional = No Good!

The TL-WR741ND is the ONLY 150N router with a detachable antenna I could find, and it runs great.

I’ve been using a DLink directional antenna that has small magnets on the bottom. For indoor use, I just stick it to the top of the Qu and point it at the middle of the ceiling, so it will bounce easily to stage.

For outdoor use, I just mount it at the top of FoH tents point at the stage, and even at 150FT it still works well.

My search is over, seems like this will be sticking with me for a long time.

It cost me about $50 total, both router and antenna.

Sharing for the rest of the people here, the search is over (IMHO)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing Ian
I’ll check this out.
My first attempt at using airport express was nightmarish [outside] about150 people milling around and just lost contact frequently.
I have hidden the connection.
Not knowing alot about networking made the airport express really easy to set up.
How was the TP link to set up?
I do run TP link here at business with an extender and seems not too bad.
Thanks again.

[mervakaParticipant]

Why is Multi antenna ever a bad thing? It’s part of the 802.11n/ac spec, allowing up to 4 and 8 MIMO streams respectively. .ac even allows beamforming!

[ian.hindParticipant]

The reason MIMO isn’t ideal for our use, is because it’s relying on walls, ceilings, etc, to bounce all it’s signals off of.

In theory, this is great for pretty much all applications of wireless, but soon as you loose the walls/roof, the signal has no direction and is off into no where.

A directional antenna tightens it’s throw, which will increase power to it’s path. The sides suffer, but if you’re in it’s path it’s great.

Since people like us are usually using this on stage, or at FoH, the back corner of a festival will be a dead spot, but you don’t want or need it there anyways.

Of course, YMMV as always. I went through many different routers, $300 current 802.11ac all the way down to old dodgy 802.11G running DD-WRT, and everything in between.

If you’re indoors, always, then MIMO is probably a good bet. Loose the walls, or be in a large venue and they fall apart.

[Author]

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