Sunday, February 10, 2013
Wireless Antenna Characteristics
Wireless antennas act as both transmitters and receivers. There are two broad classes of antennas on the market, omni directional (Omni, or point-to-multipoint) and directional (Yagi or point-to-point). As a general rule, Yagi antennas have greater range than Omni antennas of equivalent gain because Yagis focus all their power in a single direction whereas Omnis must disperse the same power in all directions at once. The drawback of using a directional antenna, though, is that more care must be taken to align communication points, generally making Yagi a good choice only for point-to-point bridging of access points. Most WAPs use Omnis because clients and other APs could be in any direction at any given moment. A non-networking example of an Omni antenna is the FM antenna on your automobile. The orientation of your car does not affect the reception of the signal. The television aerials that some of us are old enough to remember rotating into a specific direction for a certain channel (how many of you labeled your set-top antenna dial for the actual TV stations you could receive?) are examples of Yagi antennas.
Omnis and Yagis are both rated according to their signal gain with respect to an actual or the-
oretical laboratory reference antenna. These ratings are relative indicators of the corresponding
production antenna’s range. Range is also affected by the bit rate of the underlying technology, with higher bit rates extending shorter distances. Remember, a Yagi will always have a longer
range than an equivalently rated Omni, but the straight-line Yagi will be limited in coverage area.
Manufacturers rate these antennas in units of decibel isotropic (dBi) or decibel dipole (dBd),
based on the type of reference antenna (isotropic or dipole) of equivalent frequency operation
used to rate the production antenna. A positive value for either unit of measure represents a gain in signal strength with respect to the reference antenna. Webster’s defines isotropic as “exhibiting properties (as velocity of light transmission) with the same values when measured along axes in all directions.” Isotropic antennas are not able to be produced in reality, but their properties can be engineered from antenna theory for reference purposes.
Omnis and Yagis are both rated according to their signal gain with respect to an actual or the-
oretical laboratory reference antenna. These ratings are relative indicators of the corresponding
production antenna’s range. Range is also affected by the bit rate of the underlying technology, with higher bit rates extending shorter distances. Remember, a Yagi will always have a longer
range than an equivalently rated Omni, but the straight-line Yagi will be limited in coverage area.
Manufacturers rate these antennas in units of decibel isotropic (dBi) or decibel dipole (dBd),
based on the type of reference antenna (isotropic or dipole) of equivalent frequency operation
used to rate the production antenna. A positive value for either unit of measure represents a gain in signal strength with respect to the reference antenna. Webster’s defines isotropic as “exhibiting properties (as velocity of light transmission) with the same values when measured along axes in all directions.” Isotropic antennas are not able to be produced in reality, but their properties can be engineered from antenna theory for reference purposes.
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