On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 06:25:36 -0800, Amanda Riphnykhazova wrote:

Is all you are doing analogous to using a larger ear
(a whole dish) to hear more?

We're getting ten times the gain here ... and, bear in mind,
we're *not* using the 18dBi dish that came with the Nanobridge M2.

I'm just using the 3dBi feedhorn alone, without that dish.
Why?
Because the dish would be too big to carry in my laptop bag!
Plus it would be too big to set up on a Starbucks coffee table!

Given that we're just using the feedhorn, let's compare the specs
of my Lenovo laptop against that of the Nanobridge M2 feedhorn.

Looking up the specs for the antenna gain on my Lenovo W510
laptop, I cant' find a spec on the antenna gain, but I see that
they list all their laptops at no more than 3dBi (I suspect it's
about 1/2 dBi to 1dBi, like most laptops - but I don't know):
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub.../63y0530_4.pdf

The antenna gain on the Nanobridge M2 feedhorn isn't published either,
but the Nanobridge web server itself reports it as 3dBi:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3733/1...45bef4c0_o.png

The iwconfig command tells me that the laptop NIC is transmitting
at 15dBm of power:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7295/1...a89983fe_o.jpg

While, we know from the specs, that the Nanobridge feedhorn transmits
at 23dBm maximum power.

Given that, and assuming the antenna gain figures above, we are comparing:

LAPTOP = 15dBm + 1dBi = 16dBm (40 milliwatts)
FEEDHORN = 23dBm + 3dBi = 26dBm (400 milliwatts)

Notice the feedhorn is ten times more powerful than the laptop alone.
Now, let's compare that with my real-world test results:

LAPTOP gets -55dBm (0.003 microwatts)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7295/1...a89983fe_o.jpg

FEEDHORN gets -39dBm (0.1 microwatts)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3746/1...a5354629_o.png

This is two orders of magnitude more power, in my real-world test!
For the same cost as consumer equipment, which isn't as powerful.