On Mar 8, 2010, at 1:19 PM, John Musbach wrote:
Oh alright. I came to my conclusion when I was working on setting up the wireless network for my family at home. I noticed that the only higher power antennas I could find for my (now out of date) airport extreme base station were directional so I assumed that to mean that directionality was a function of power. I tried looking for omnidirectional higher power antennas for the airport extreme but I must've been looking in the wrong places because I couldn't seem to find any at the time.
Antennas are not 'higher' or 'lower' power. You can attach *better* antennas that increase the range but they don't affect the output signal, merely attenuate it less on transmission. Directional antennas will get you farther range by confining the signal to a narrow region.
Think a hose nozzle set to wide spray (omnidirectional) or narrow spray (directional) the water pressure, which is set by the spigot valve, is the same in both cases, but the narrow spray reaches much farther by confining the water (signal) to a smaller area.
Some antennas come with an auxiliary amplifier built-in which will actually increase the signal power, much like the pump in a pressure washer will amplify the water pressure input.
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