Effect of orientation of antennas and antenna arrays?

[Ceph92]

If you have a long, straight antenna, afaik, the best transmission and reception will be in the plane perpendicular that antenna (and also bisecting the antenna).

So if your router has orientable antennas, and a single-story house, you'd want to place it near the center of your house and orient the antenna so be vertical, putting as much house and property in range as possible. Right?

Now, what if there's four antennas and they're in a row, parallel (see Netgear R8500) ? Then we're talking about characteristics of the phased array. Is there more signal (and/or selectivity) along the row, versus perpendicular to it? So in the plane perpendicular to all the antennas, you've got an axis in-line with the array, and one perpendicular to it. Is either better at isolating a given client device and it's antennas?

I live in a 3+1 story brownstone-type house in the city. The house is 15-feet wide, but the house+patio is 80-100 feet back from the front of the house. I'm wondering how to orient the router and antennas so that as much of the house and property (and parking area) is covered as possible, and use the relative dead spots to try and isolate the adjoining houses's devices. I'm thinking it should in th emiddle of the house, but oriented with antennas horizontal and arranged alone the largest dimension of the house (front->rear).

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Best answer is to use more than one access point, and to reduce the transmit power in order to keep client devices on the closest access point.

Hardwiring a second 'router' located on the top floor, and using it in 'bridge' or 'AP' mode would be one way, perhaps the cheapest.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

+1 to what IdiotInCharge said. Multiple lower-power APs is the correct answer. Though I'm guessing that you have no ethernet running throughout the house to connect them up. If you have coax runs and not using satellite TV MOCA adapters are an option. Powerline adapters may also work, but they're often hit-or-miss. One of the better mesh solutions may also work.

As for trying to orient the antennas of the existing AP, it's can't hurt to try. My guess is that the antennas on it are in the 5-8 dB range. The higher the number, the flatter and wider the signal "donut" is going to be. Were it me, I'd try placing the AP near the center of the area I wanted to cover, unit on its side, antennas horizontal and pointing towards one of the side walls. In theory, this should provide the best coverage of the structure you describe with less intrusion into neighboring units.

Also helpful: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ntific-guide-to-wi-fi-access-point-placement/

 

[Dead Parrot]

Guessing it would only be a phased array if there was one radio and the antennas were meant to be setup in some sort of Yagi. Would also expect one longer antenna and a couple of shorter ones. Sounds like that router has multiple radios, each with its own antenna.

Expect the 2.4 to be better for the distant parts of the house and the 5 for closer to the router.

Put the router in a central location away from solid walls(brick) or large chimneys. Experiment with the antenna orientations until you either find one that works or decide you need a 2nd or 3rd AP.

Keep in mind that there is a fair amount of magic to RF propagation.