Shared Knowledge
“Hawking HSB2 WiFi Signal Booster -
User Review”
Summary: Does work and helps but not a cure-all to stinking, useless, Wi-Fi.
My daughter does not have
cable or access to
Anyway, the point being that
in a rental house she was in, she could scan for and connect to a café hotspot
just around the corner. This was with an 802.11g card installed into a desktop
and a Hawking 7db gain WiFi antenna.
Then, she moved and although
a scan of signals showed several non-encrypted G’s, most had very low signal
strength and a reliable connection between her computer and the free, hotspot
could not be made.
So, I bought the Hawking HSB2
WiFi signal booster and I am very happy to say that this product really works.
Once I connected the HSB2 between her computer and a Linksys 7db gain antenna,
wireless signals that once had only a signal strength of 8% or less now had a
strength of 40% or so and she could establish a stable connection.
Just to experiment, I tried
with the amplifier, without the amp, with a rubber ducky antenna and with the
Linksys hi-gain and in the end, the best combination was with the HSB2 set at
its highest transmit power of 500 milliwatts (mw) and using the Linksys hi-gain
antenna placed as close to a window as I could get it.
Drawbacks of the HSB2?
Really, there aren’t any. It does have a power adapter that requires access to
120V’s and comes with a pretty short amplifier to computer signal cable and I
would have loved to have seen a better antenna included but I gather there is
some FCC regulation about boosting WiFi signals too much because of the
potential for interference.
So, this amp and a hi-gain
antenna will really help you out if you can see any non-encrypted hotspots in
your area and want to try to get a stable connection to them.