So, I was in a hacking things together mood last night when I couldn't sleep. I have an antenna pair waiting to add an antenna to a friend's netbook (that only has ONE stock antenna - no rx diversity) so I could upgrade to a dual-band dual-stream card. To get some practice tearing apart netbooks and routing antenna cables, I figured I'd add the second antenna in the pair to my netbook so I'd be ready to grab a 3-stream card. For giggles, I connected my newly installed antenna instead of the stock antenna to port 1 on my existing card (which is 1x2 MIMO). WOW, my downstream speeds shot way up - from about 40mbps to about 60mbps. I have yet to test range, if it's decreased, I'll swap it so my primary (and thus upstream) antenna is one of the stock antennas. I doubt it will be.
Why did this make such a difference? I have no idea, my best guess is that since I installed this antenna sideways relative to the stock antennas, and since it's a different antenna design, the spatial diversity required for two streams works better. Regardless of cause, it's a fantastic demonstration of why antennas must not be forgotten and if slow wireless has you down, consider playing with antennas! In my wildest dreams, I didn't expect this dramatic of an improvement.
Why did this make such a difference? I have no idea, my best guess is that since I installed this antenna sideways relative to the stock antennas, and since it's a different antenna design, the spatial diversity required for two streams works better. Regardless of cause, it's a fantastic demonstration of why antennas must not be forgotten and if slow wireless has you down, consider playing with antennas! In my wildest dreams, I didn't expect this dramatic of an improvement.
