Im considering purchasing a Banana Pi OpenWRT router.

My previous devices have all had internal aerials but this device has four connectors.

Knowing almost nothing about Wifi 6 and aerials How feasible is it to run extensions from one or more of those aerials out the wall of our house and use a larger uni or directional aerial to extend coverage in a particular direction from a high point or should you always have the same short aerials that come with the router?

  • gazter@aussie.zoneEnglish
    2·
    24 days ago

    I’ll preface this with stating that I only know enough about radio frequency transmission to know that I barely know anything. As far as I’m concerned, it’s black magic, and the more I learn about it, the more I’m convinced the world isn’t real.

    To answer your question, it might will work, but I doubt it doubt it will be a good value option. WiFi 6 uses Multiple User Multiple In Multiple Out, MU-MIMO which basically means the signals from each antenna don’t just get added together. Crazy algorithms manipulate the signal to give better reception based on how the other antennas are acting, so the radio waves interact with each other. If the antennas aren’t close enough to interact, these algorithms won’t be optimal.

    Also, the cost of running good quality RF cable, finding an appropriate antenna, and terminating cable ends can add up, especially compared to how cheap cat5 cable is, and how easily you can get simple access points. OpenWRT makes it easy to create a mesh network with an additional WAP.

    TL,DR: keep the antennas on the device. If your signal ends up being not as good as you want, go get a cheap second hand wireless access point, either wifi 5 or 6, and run some network cable.

    • abeorch@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      24 days ago

      Cheers yeah that completely makes sense. One reason I asked is that I run multiple SSIDs and some policy based routing so I thought that avoiding the complexity of another router might be an idea.

      • gazter@aussie.zoneEnglish
        1·
        24 days ago

        You won’t be running an additional router. If the WAP you use has a router function, disable it. Searching the openWRT docs for ‘dumb AP’ should put you in the right direction.