Powerful dual band WLAN adapter supported by inet routers?

Technical Support for Routers
1

I would like to connect an USB WLAN adapter to my GL-AR300M.
I am looking for maximum range and ideally dual band performance. Since I want to use it in my camper it should operate on power supply by USB or 12V.
At the moment I don’t care for country specific power restrictions. I would like to start with rod antenna that may be changed to something directional later on. Or I’ll add a wok as needed. :grin:
Can you please recommend a setup that provides longest range for the buck?
Many thanks.

2

For actuals gl devices i would buy AC1200 wifi cards r usb sticks, par example:

External USB:

Internal notebook card:

  • The last offical Intel HMW form factor wifi card: Intel 7260HMW AC (not N or AN in the name) will cost about 10 to 20 USD
  • or for newer notebooks with NGW slot, a minimum AC 1200 wifi card with NGW slot will cost about 10 to 20 USD
3

A GL-AR300M does not have any way to plug in an Internal notebook wifi card. So I do not see how that will help.

USB wifi dongles can be connected, BUT! It is important to get a dongle, which is supported in by the wifi drivers that are available for OpenWRT. The device you linked I believe is based on rtl8822bu chipset. Realtek and USB dongle drivers in OpenWRT are not a happy match as far as I’ve seen. I do not believe I see drivers in OpenWRT for that specific chipset. Selecting a USB dongle for this specific case requires some research to really find a well working USB dongle, but it is not impossible (I has one, but it is ‘old’ and no longer for sale) but it is not really easy to just buy any USB dongle, stick it in the usb poort and have it working!

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4

On top of that, the USB port on the AR300M is only USB2.0. You will have max 480Mbps transfer speeds on the USB port, but that being theoretical and you need to account for overhead, you end up with around the same speed as the built in wifi, around 300Mbps.

5

I don’t care too much about ultimate speed, but more about finding accessible WiFis while traveling.
So long range and dual band capability is more important.
Actually, AR300M next to my phone the phone finds more networks.
The biggest advantage should be that I can use an external (outdoor) antenna + more powerful adapter.

6

Sure, i understood what you were looking for, i was just replying to the posts above, so you don’t go order a card that you won’t even be able to use, or have speeds higher than you can use, it would be a waste of money.

If i remember correctly the AR300M has internal pcb antennas, but you also get the u.FL connectors for external antennas too. You just have to modify the board a bit, i think you need to remove 2 resistors inline with the u.FL connectors. Then with a higher gain antenna you would get a bit more range.

@alzhao

1 Like
7

I’m afraid I am not up to this task. :smile:
Anyway dual band capability would be really nice as well.

8

Isn’t it this one?

We may not add wifi driver on all router but will add to powerful routers.

9

I believe that is what he is looking for, but just for the 300m.

So in that case: Find a USB dongle based on a RTL8811AU/RTL8812AU/RTL8821AU chipset and you probably will be fine. Those are available!

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10

Thats great. Thats mean we can drill out devices by:

  • available dual band USB AC1200 adapter, which start by <10 USD
  • an if available, with dual band usb ax adapter with 2400 or 3000 MBit
    ( its possible on this time to by <20 USD AX200 card and <5USD HMW or NGW to usb adapter)

Yes I know, some router have only a USB 2 port. A getting realy 480MBit/s or 5 GBit/s is much better than getting partly only 150, 300 or so on MBit. A in real live its more importent to get the rest of features of actual ax standard like:

  • MuMimo
  • higher data traffic by channel
  • not only 20 or 40 MHz channel but for that 80 or 160MHz
  • support of protected management frames
  • oportunistic encryption
  • WPA3 encryption
  • bigger range !!!
  • and so on

Lets speed up the gl routers and the gl business.

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11

You’re still limited by the amount of work the cpu in the soc will do for you. Running the drivers for the USB dongle and handling all the usb-bus data is not as well optimized as the internal wifi radio.

And you’re very very not reading the parts: You need driver support in OpenWRT for the USB wifi dongle to work. Your AX200 card that you want to convert to usb using adaptors (oh yea, that will be great for any drivers) will not work at this point. Wifi-6 is still very much work in progress for a lot of things!

Feel free to buy all that, but do not be disappointed if that will not work (in best case a year or so, in the worst case it will never work!)

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12

I’m interested in these kinds of antennas/adapters.
Seems that all the powerful chips are Ralinks!?
Some claim nearly 6W power… Plus directional antennas :smiling_imp:
But no dual band. :roll_eyes:

I heard that USB 3 actually creates more noise reducing sensitivity of the receiver. I’d be happy with a bit slower speeds.

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13

also one thing to keep in mind, the usb wireless drivers working with the brume can only use 2ghz or 5ghz at any one time so you have to configure and select 2or5ghz then once that is set you can configure the stations

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14

The resistors reduce the power transmitted to the antenna?
It is that easy? Just remove them?

15

Did you give it a try?

16

Any news? Are there dual band chips implemented for 300M in the meantime?

17

I agree - let me add also that there are some “high power” adapters that can draw more current than the AR300M can deliver.

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