ALFA Network – Long Range Wireless Adapter

Today we received a new toy to assist us with connection and performance to a campground’s wifi. We ordered an Alfa Network Adapter and an Indoor Long Range Antenna. We use our Verizon aircard and are very pleases with it, but prefer to use the campground’s wifi to download software updates or view online video so we don’t go over our monthly 5gb limit.

Sandy was talking with our current neighbors (Gil & Mary Ellen), they mentioned that they were able to pickup the wifi here at Pony Express with the aid of the ALFA network adapter. Gil was so kind to print out the information for the device and where he ordered it from. Sandy called pre-sales support at Pasadena Network and they confirmed that this is the latest and greatest they have to improve a Wifi connection. We could have ordered a larger outside antenna, but Sandy felt the long range antenna would meet our needs. Sandy also contacted the 3gstore where we purchased our wireless amplifier setup to verify if they had anything else that would work better but they did not.

Installation is very easy to do as you just load the CD that comes with the USB adapter and follow the on screen instruction to install the driver and optional utility software. Next you plug in the ALFA network adapter to your USB port and select the appropriate network connection.

If you install the utility software it will display all the connections, signal strength, and additional information if you click on a selected connection.

The following are some speed tests that we ran to see the difference in performance:

Speed test without the ALFA network adapter. It is very difficult to get connected and stay connected to the campground’s wifi. When we get connected to the network the response time is extremely slow and we can only see the closest network connection to our campsite.

Speed test with the USB adapter and the basic antenna that comes with it As you can see the response time did improve and we were able to stay connected to the network. We can now see all three of the campgrounds network connections.

Speed test with the USB adapter and the Long Range antenna As you can see the response is much better with this antenna, it is well worth the additional $17.00.