I guess I'm finally getting serious about hardware...

[ax0n]

For quite a while, I've stuck to my Linksys WPC11v3 (Prism 3.0) and D-Link DWL-650 (Prism 2.5) cards, both of which have internal antennae and lack easy methods for hooking up an external antenna. I had a pigtail soldered to the DWL-650 for a while, and made a homebrew omni for my car, but it didn't work all that well, only marginally better than before I hacked it.

Anyways, tomorrow, I will have been here 3 years to the day. It's time to up the ante a bit. Last week I bought the following:

Senao NL-2511CD EXT2 (200mW card, 2 MMCX Jacks)
5dB Sky2Web Omni-Directional Blade Antenna
2dB low-profile rubber ducky

I got the card and rubber ducky in on Friday, and the Blade antenna in on Saturday. Let me say that it works better than I could have ever imagined! The Senao card doesn't have any antenna built-in but I can still use it without an antenna anywhere in my apartment.

With the antenna and new card using MiniStumbler on my Jornada 720, I picked up 68 new AP's on my bus ride to work this morning. I haven't picked up ANY new access points in over a week on that trip. Just the same ones every day.

I can't wait to give this a serious drive test with BSD-Airtools or KisMAC.

Also en route (from Hong Kong) is a 7.5dB magnet mount omni. I'll probably wait to do the serious testing until that bad boy gets here. I intend on hanging the blade omni from my rearview mirror and planting the mag-mount high center on my roof. With a 6ft pigtail, it should be able to reach.

I'll post some pics later.

[hratch]

So where's the amplifier?

That's when you know you gone over the top...oh wait...

(...coming from one of the many guys who use two senao cards and two amps at once.)

[ax0n]

Yah, I said I'm getting serious. It's hard to call yourself a serious 'driver with just a WPC11v3. Of course, there's only a handfull of crazies like you here.

Take that as a compliment.

Back in the day I made it to the first page overall but it's been a long time. I'm going to make that my goal for now.

[Dutch]

For quite a while, I've stuck to my Linksys WPC11v3 (Prism 3.0) and D-Link DWL-650 (Prism 2.5) cards, both of which have internal antennae and lack easy methods for hooking up an external antenna. I had a pigtail soldered to the DWL-650 for a while, and made a homebrew omni for my car, but it didn't work all that well, only marginally better than before I hacked it.

Anyways, tomorrow, I will have been here 3 years to the day. It's time to up the ante a bit. Last week I bought the following:

Senao NL-2511CD EXT2 (200mW card, 2 MMCX Jacks)
5dB Sky2Web Omni-Directional Blade Antenna
2dB low-profile rubber ducky

I got the card and rubber ducky in on Friday, and the Blade antenna in on Saturday. Let me say that it works better than I could have ever imagined! The Senao card doesn't have any antenna built-in but I can still use it without an antenna anywhere in my apartment.

With the antenna and new card using MiniStumbler on my Jornada 720, I picked up 68 new AP's on my bus ride to work this morning. I haven't picked up ANY new access points in over a week on that trip. Just the same ones every day.

I can't wait to give this a serious drive test with BSD-Airtools or KisMAC.

Also en route (from Hong Kong) is a 7.5dB magnet mount omni. I'll probably wait to do the serious testing until that bad boy gets here. I intend on hanging the blade omni from my rearview mirror and planting the mag-mount high center on my roof. With a 6ft pigtail, it should be able to reach.

I'll post some pics later.

That card is sweet, but it is not designed to be used without an external antenna attached. If you continue to use it without an antenna attached, you will fry the radio TX electronics.

Using two dissimilar antennas at the same time is not advisable. Google for "antenna diversity" for the reason why. Also be aware that the card uses one of the connectors for tx and rx, while the other connector is rx only.

Dutch

[Dutch]

Yah, I said I'm getting serious. It's hard to call yourself a serious 'driver with just a WPC11v3. Of course, there's only a handfull of crazies like you here.

Take that as a compliment.

Back in the day I made it to the first page overall but it's been a long time. I'm going to make that my goal for now.

It's actually a psychological disorder called OCWDD (Obsessive Compulsive WarDriving Disorder). Not something to be made fun of. It's a real illness for those afflicted with it (meaning all in the Wigle top 25).
And you don't need to be using an amp, to be diagnosed with that disease. You just need to wardrive any time you go anywhere, and plan your trips to go boldly where no wardriver has gone before, even if it means taking a detour to reach your planned destination. I've been known to drive 20 kilometers, just to get a pack of cigarettes from the convenience store 200 meters down the block...

Dutch

[whitedice]

I got a Senao 2511 CD+ Ext2 (200mW), but it shows Senao 2011 (100mW) in linux (Backtrack)... The drivers from Senao's website installs a Spanish Wlan configurator in XP? The research I've done says its the right card being listed, but the configurator was English when I installed it, but Spanish on reboot. I got it to work with hostap in kismet, and it seems to do very well, but I have no idea if I'm maximizing its usage. I installed wlan-ng drivers, but when I run a dual pcmcia configuration it appears to lock onto a channel, and not hop. Switched back to hostap and it hopped.

Also, when you hit "l"(lowercase L) and it lists Wireless Card Power, it lists a P: and a N: with #s between 150 to 200? Nothing in kismet documentation that I can find, or google explains what the heck those numbers mean, anyone? I'm sure its obvious, but no dice.

My wardriving rig consists of 1 amp, 2 laptops, 3 nics, 6 antennas (1 is external t-mobile antenna to GC89 for Google Earth), kismet, & netstumbler. I have a crossover cable to vnc my linux rig from my passenger seat. I have so many wires in my car, it's ridiculous. But overall, I have positioned everything to attract as little attention as possible on and in my car. My next goal is to pass the 1% mark on the total found list.

I still don't understand where hratch is getting double the aps I'm getting each month, but I'm gaining ground each week on just about everyone else. I have become a little obsessed with gaining in the ranks.

[ax0n]

Yah, I noticed that the connector on the front (facing me when inserted face-up into the left side of my laptop) gets better results.

I guess I'll order a second magnet mount antenna. I know about diversity for performance but I didn't know it was needed.

I don't think I'm going to go too crazy with multiple high-power rigs, amps, and whatnot. My part of the world isn't nearly as populated as some others, but I do plan on hitting downtown pretty hard once my other antennae come in. I got another 160+ AP's on the commute back (which goes through more of downtown than the trip to work). Again, I hadn't seen any new AP's in a week when riding the bus, so that's a pretty big increase. I know there are definitely thousands and thousands point lurking in the towers of Kansas City.

Thanks for the input.

[ccie4526]

Of course, there's only a handfull of crazies like you here.

I resemble that remark.

[Dutch]

Yah, I noticed that the connector on the front (facing me when inserted face-up into the left side of my laptop) gets better results.

I guess I'll order a second magnet mount antenna. I know about diversity for performance but I didn't know it was needed.

I don't think I'm going to go too crazy with multiple high-power rigs, amps, and whatnot. My part of the world isn't nearly as populated as some others, but I do plan on hitting downtown pretty hard once my other antennae come in. I got another 160+ AP's on the commute back (which goes through more of downtown than the trip to work). Again, I hadn't seen any new AP's in a week when riding the bus, so that's a pretty big increase. I know there are definitely thousands and thousands point lurking in the towers of Kansas City.

Thanks for the input.

You don't need a second antenna if you only are going to run a passive tool such as Kismet, or KisMac in passive mode. Just connect the antenna to the TX/RX connector (since it is the primary connector), as stated in the Senao documentation.

Dutch

[ax0n]

This comes with a manual?!

Oh yah... it did... somewhere... *chortle*

I think it came with a CD too.

[i_do_dew]

I still don't understand where hratch is getting double the aps I'm getting each month, but I'm gaining ground each week on just about everyone else. I have become a little obsessed with gaining in the ranks.

You shouldn't follow him 2 streets over anymore! Im unfortunately sidelined until I can save my play money for a new GPS or to get mine fixed. Something corrupted my flash upload to my Garmin GPS35PC and now it doesnt talk to anything. I'm also in one of those less dense areas most of my 20K AP's make up about 45% of the APs in my countyJigle stat). In the summer I've found that garage sales are a good way to go trolling through suburban residental districts, not sure what I'm going to come up with for the winter months. Unfortunately, I do not drive an inconspicous vehicle.

On the diversity antenna, as long as you are using a matched antenna I cant see that using a differnt type of antenna will affect diversity in a receive only scan. Just need to remember that as the gain is increased on an Omni antenna the pattern is a flatter donut(disc) perpendicular to the plane of the antenna. So if you plan on heading though downtown, one antenna may want to be angled (not bent!) at about 20-45 degrees off of vertical to reach the tops of buildings down the road in front of you.

[ax0n]

I'm getting giddy. My two mag-mount omnis should be sitting at my clubhouse today.

Too bad my car is down and out with a trashed shifter linkage.

[argh]

if you're using Kismet, an amp won't help at all (unless you mean receive pre-amp). i'm sure it would with Netstumbler, since it transmits.

[themacuser]

if you're using Kismet, an amp won't help at all (unless you mean receive pre-amp). i'm sure it would with Netstumbler, since it transmits.

Most amps will boost the received signal too.

I'm going today, with a Senao NCD-2511 and a 12dbi omni. That's going to be good.

[ax0n]

I got my two antennae in today and hooked them up to my 200mW card...

2 words:

Holy. Crap.

I re-drove a hoity-toity neighborhood that I've been through at least 100 times while delivering pizza. I picked up 543 NEW, PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN APs tonight, seeing a total of 1394 networks (so I'd already picked up about 850 nets before this, delivering pizza)

Talk about a heck of a difference (40% more APs)

First page, here I come.