[bully28]

i've been looking at the netgear wireless routers and i was curious if i wanted to boost my wifi a bit, can i connect the external antenna that i've seen being sold with the airport extreme base stations in the mac-a-logs lately?
if not, are there better recommendations on boosting reception from the base--i'm hoping to get outside and to my unattached garage about 150' away and still get good reception.
also, if anyone can tell me why/if i'd need the latest netgear router with the built-in firewall--it seems my osx firewall has been just fine.
that's all folks! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[braindoc]

Most typical home use wireless routers do not have upgradeable external antennae. You often need to go to the more expensive business product line to get this feature. Case and point: The Netgear products for home can only utilize the attached 2dbi antennae. If you get the Prosafe line of routers and access point they have detachable antennae that you can get 5 or even 18 dbi antennae change out. But the costs is usually much higher, comparable to the airport extreme products.
Another example this time a D-Link product:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=39 is the router
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=51 is the antenna to boost the range
together this combo is around $230 still a little less than the Airport extreme and antenna combo. However, it is 802.11b. For 802.11g standard expect to add about $70 more.
Since this is going out to the garage, consider running a cable out there and attach a bridge, or an access point to give you excellent signal out there. Ethernet cable have a limit of 330ft for a single run of cable.

[proudy]

If you have an electric line from the house to the garage (and it's a circuit off the main disconnect), you might also look at the Powerline Ethernet adapters, which patch TCP/IP ethernet across existing electrical lines (which means you won't have to run new wires.)