Problems loading driver for external antenna

[Colin Law]

On 20 December 2010 15:50, John Everard <johneverard at hotmail.com> wrote:
>...
> Sorry for posting in the wrong place.  I am posting from a hotmail account
> so that I think I am condemned to send in HTML - if there is a way of
> posting in straight text, please tell me.

Google for hotmail post plain text produces a number of hits that may
or may not be useful.

> This all started when I found that the wireless signal was too weak for my
> main (Ubuntu 10.10) computer's Ralink antenna, so I bought a GSI external
> antenna with a Realtek 8187 chip to try to solve the problem.  It didn't
> work, and there were no installation instructions for Ubuntu machines.
>  After many exchanges it now looks like Ubuntu had installed the right
> driver and with Nils' help I have entered the SSID in the right place.  I
> have managed to download a couple of pages but it is still so slow that
> Firefox usually times out before it can display a page.
> I am typing using the external antenna on a little Windows machine which
> sits next to my main computer.  I had it up and working within moments, and
> it makes a difference to the signal received.  I don't have a wired
> connection that I can try out.  There are quite a few wireless signals
> around so I suppose it might just be a channel clash

There aught to be a way of seeing the other transmitters' channel
numbers but I don't know how to do it in NM.  Anyone else?

> - but if it were then I
> would expect this to affect my Windows computer too, but it doesn't seem to.

Maybe the Windows driver is better at filtering out the noise.

>
> I have moved the antenna and computer around the room but this seems to make
> only a marginal difference.  I cannot move the base station.
> Might you be able please to suggest what I should try next?

I think you need to determine whether it is a problem with signal
strength/interference or something else.  Can you not temporarily move
the PC nearer the hub to find out?

Colin