Customer Reviews

Higain Directional Dish Antenna 8DBI Sma Tnc

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Hawking USB Dish Adapter has worked very well for me. The setup was simple and straight forward. Windows XP did not find the driver in its approved list, big surprise, but it loaded and installed fine and did not interfere with other applications. If you are using a notebook, with built-in WiFi, make sure it is disabled before using your Hawking. Access to the Hawking wireless network connection is best achieved from the "Start" menu using the "connect to" function. I spend a good deal of time in my RV and often the signal strength in RV parks is poor, this little dish antenna always pulls in the weak signals. The ability to monitor the source and signal strength in real time is a welcome bonus. At home the USB Dish Adapter easily pulls in WiFi signals that are several hundred yards away; often connecting to sources that my notebook WiFi can't even register.

I bought this primarily because I was sick and tired of paying for truck stop WiFI and having an intermittent signal at best. I haven't had much chance to test it yet, although from what I've done with it, I am still optimistic(usually a good thing!). Right now, I have this antenna wired through an EnGenious adaptor, and a 16 foot USB repeater. With this combination, I can put the antenna anywhere in or on my truck, so it is definitely much more versatile than my laptops internal hardware. My first experience with this antenna was in a residential area, and it picked up more signals than any of the 3 laptops we were testing against. Most of these signals were stronger, but a few were noticeably weaker. About half of the signals found were boosted by @2 to 3 bars on my signal scanner. Tonight, I am at a busy truck stop somewhere north of Las Vegas, and my internal antenna seems to be holding a better signal. Guess the ultimate test for me will be when i spend an evening at the truck stops in Ontario California where its bloody hard to hold a signal for 5 minutes!
For those of you who are as impulsive as I am, beware that this is an SMA wired antenna ONLY. This unit is not a WiFI adaptor whatsoever, and is primarily useful for a home pc!
If you are using a laptop and are looking for an "on the go" antenna, make sure you order the USB model. It costs @55 dollars on Amazon, but that is much cheaper than trying to make this model USB compatible.

UPDATE: 2 years too late
Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a chance to do any followup testing of this product, I was only able to use it for a little over a week. During that time, I did use it at several truck stops and hotel hotspots. In general, it did seem to perform better than the internal antennas in my laptops did, but there were a couple of places where this completely missed the mark. Unfortunately, after about a week and a half or two of use, this was destroyed (alongside everything else I owned) in an accident.

Product is incredibly powerful for its size and will amply boost any regular sma based usb wifi dongle significantly. Package arrived the same day as the earliest estimated delivery. I have had the product nearly a year now and have used it in many different situations(large apt buildings, suburbs, outdoors amid a widespread neighborhood in texas.... The device boosts a pc and will turn your laptop into a mobile free wifi locator basically :) point the dish and watch the numbers... walk this way or that and basically ''ping'' again...its strong enough to lock on to one directionally and very easily pinpoint where the broadcast is coming from :p BEWARE IF U HAVE KIDS. ITS ''CUTE'' AND QUICKLY ATTRACTS THEM IN MY EXPERIENCES. IT WILL GET DROOL IN IT AND BE USELESS AS SOON AS U LOOK AWAY. I almost lost it to a kid once....pulled it from under his face just as he let a super drop go :p close call but the antenna survived unscated^.^

Bought the antenna after purchasing a D ling Rangebooster N desktop adapter DWA-542 (which is lightning fast but has an unstable connection-so beware). This little antenna performs as advertized. As a matter of fact, I can pick up signals 3-4 houses down and from across the street! The only disadvantage that I can think of is that it has a delicate feel to it (I hid it from the kids by placing it in behind the monitor) and that it looks like one of the old style TV antennas (reto look). If you can put up with this I don't think you are going to find a more powerful wireless antenna on the market. The price is also very reasonable (I paid over $50 for the Rangebooster N desktop adapter).

This style directional antenna works well in mountain areas where there may be more than one wireless network to pick up on and you are trying to restrict receiving from a specific network.