amplifiers - RF Cafe Forums

RF Cafe Forums closed its virtual doors in late 2012 mainly due to other social media platforms dominating public commenting venues. RF Cafe Forums began sometime around August of 2003 and was quite well-attended for many years. By 2012, Facebook and Twitter were overwhelmingly dominating online personal interaction, and RF Cafe Forums activity dropped off precipitously. Regardless, there are still lots of great posts in the archive that ware worth looking at. Below are the old forum threads, including responses to the original posts. Here is the full original RF Cafe Forums on Archive.org

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wsemajb
 Post subject: amplifiers
Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:13 am 
 
Captain

Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:50 pm

Posts: 11

Please excuse a novice's timid hand raised in the back row, but...

Ive got an accumulation of television stuff in the workshop and got to wondering if any of the various video signal amplifiers can be used for 2.4ghz? I seem unable to find any specs on them. I'm hoping they might have anywhere between 200 and 500ma power. They have low voltage wall adapters and I could replace the coax connections with rp-sma.

I have seen 500ma signal amps on the net, but for 120.00 I thought that I might just experiment with the ones I have to see if they are of any use at all. Can I do any real damage by trying? Is it certainly a waste of time? Is the freq range of these devices absolutely fixed? Or is this range something that can be tinkered with given the basic components inside?

Thanks for any advice.


 
   
 
wsemajb
 Post subject: Post-Script...
Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:23 am 
 
Captain

Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:50 pm

Posts: 11

Given the option of replacing a 2dbi omni antenna with a 7dbi omni antenna on a wireless router, or putting a small -let's say 250ma- "booster" between the existing antenna and the router, which is preferable? For the sake of argument, if after the math is done, (I have not done it), we've gained exactly the same dbi with the amp as would have been gained using a bigger antenna, is there any difference between these improvements?

 
   
 
wsemajb
 Post subject: answer
Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 3:18 pm 
 
Captain

Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:50 pm

Posts: 11

a little more searching may have answered my question. the amp needs to be bi-directional for wlan xmit/receive. tv/video boosters are not, apparantly. but would not many newer versions be bi-directional since so much media is becoming interactive?

Posted  11/12/2012