What airspirit said is right on the money. With wireless networking, you get what you pay for. If your going to depend on wireless for a reliable network link, it pay to spend some extra dollars up front and get quality equipment and save yourself some frustration. As far as the lower priced equipment goes, Linksys has the best bang for the buck. What your looking for in a wireless AP is the transmit/receive output, most will show it in db, the linksys WAP11 is putting out 20db with equates to 100mw of power. The same is true for the PCMCIA cards. Most brands only put out 75mw or less. By far the best bang for the buck with the PCMCIA card is the Orinoco Gold or Silver card, it putting out 100mw. It might not seem like a big difference, but it really is. If you want to spend a little more for an AP, I would look at the Orinoco AP-500, its a great AP and goes for around $250.
I have a setup in Arizona between my Parents house and my Uncles house which is apx 10 miles apart with decent line of sight using to wap11's and 24dp parabolic antennas. They get a consistant 5mps transfer rate.
scott
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