can use antenna with Nighthawk AX extender for better signal
Have Nighthawk extender as above.
have Verizon FIOS box & G3100 router in flatmate's room which cannot move (condo rules); condo has thick plaster, lath walls. cannot run network cables.
Am getting a 'weak' 2.4 amber light on Nighthawk in room down short hall, around corner,
Can I use an external antenna on Nighthawk to acquire better signal from FIOS router? If so, what kind of antenna, and how use w Nighthawk - USB? some sort of adapter?
Re: can use antenna with Nighthawk AX extender for better signal
If the extender lacks external removable antennas, then attaching one can be difficult and risky since it would essentially require some hardware modification to essentially add a few RP-SMA jacks to the extender.
Beyond that, for locations with walls which heavily attenuate WiFi signals, it requires careful placement and experimentation. A good way to treat an AP in your situation is to pretend it is a super bright light bulb, and you wanted to keep the light in that room but get as much of it to reach your room as possible without getting in the way. Where in the room would you place the router?
In some condos and apartments you can end up with walls made up of thick materials that attenuate WiFi but the doors may be made with just really thin wood paneling and largely hollow on the inside. While you can't just place an AP right by a door since that will get in the way, you can experiment with placement in both rooms, or if possible, placement between 2 rooms of an extender. Also, WiFi APs will take advantage of reflected signals to improve propagation.
For example, Netgear tends to try and stay close to the 30dBm (1 watt) transmit power limit set by the FCC where possible, thus in some cases in a challenging environment where you can't run wires, you may get better results actually plating the extender outside of the room at a midpoint, and then connecting to the extender via WiFi, since the more powerful AP be able to maintain a better SNR after dealing with the attenuation of a single wall.
Another important thing to consider, make sure the verizon router, as well as the extender are not using DFS channels. DFS channels get limited to 250mw vs the normal 1000mw limit, and in a location with walls that attenuate WiFi signals heavily, that can really cause speed issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
Also make sure the G3100 is set to use 80MHz channels on the 5GHz band and not use 160MHz channel width, that will allow the use around 900mw transmit power instead of 250mw (due to the horrible DFS restrictions).
Beyond that, the Netgear extenders (as well as the ones from all other major brands) only really use their USB ports for USB storage and things like printer sharing. No WiFi router or AP will use its USB port to support a USB WiFI adapter since most USB WiFi adapters run at under 200mw transmit power, and in trying to balance physical space, and power consumption, you often end up with components that will not achieve as good of a receiver sensitivity as a purpose built AP which does not have to compromise in those areas.
I wanted to also add, if you are using a desktop PC with a WiFi adapter, you could also probably get away with not using an extender at all, and simply connecting 2 biquad or even 2 yagi antennas to the RP-SMA jacks and then pointing them at the location of the main WiFi router, and potentially also get decent speeds.
Re: can use antenna with Nighthawk AX extender for better signal
What about an access point that gets its connection with ethernet over power? Not what you were asking about but the reply above seems to suggest adding a big antenna is not trivial.
Re: can use antenna with Nighthawk AX extender for better signal
good idea, Thanks!
downside is that this is an old condo, built in 1920s though refurbished ~2000 and unsure about state of electrical circuits, and thought about it; however, apparently not good to use UPS or such with powerline.
Re: can use antenna with Nighthawk AX extender for better signal
For powerline adapters it is best to use them directly in an outlet. Most surge protectors will also contain components designed to filter out noise such as ceramic capacitors, and various other components designed to reduce some line noise. That also ruins the signaling from powerline adapters.
For best performance, power line adapters work best when both endpoints for the powerline adapter are on the same side of the electrical panel. Many powerline adapters, especially the ones from Netgear have a passthrough plug so that they are less likely to get in the way when it comes to limited access to outlets, for example the Netgear PLP1200.
Even with really old wiring, they can still perform well so long as the you are not using strange electrical panel, or using a ton of extremely old appliances from before we had decent EMC standards.
