Public have been brainwashed to believe the external antennas provide superior performance ...

The heat maps show that the Archer AXE75 was able to provide a relatively strong 2.4GHz signal throughout our test house, but the signal became weaker in parts of the garage. The router’s 5GHz band also weakened in the garage but showed slightly better range.

The colors on the maps represent signal strength—dark green for the strongest signal, yellow for a weaker one, and gray indicating no detectable coverage. The circle on the map represents the location of the router. As you can see, the WRX560 did a fine job of delivering strong Wi-Fi throughout the house, although signal strength for both bands became a little weaker in the garage.

two best 2024 routers according to PC-Mag for Most People:

And in any case the access point, in principle, should be placed in the center of the apartment, not on the side... Half the power goes to cover the neighbors...

while in EU metal profiles supports are generally used, which I suspect can form some kind of Faraday cage).

And in any case the access point, in principle, should be placed in the center of the apartment, not on the side... Half the power goes to cover the neighbors...

Classic problem caused by a lot of installers. They provide internet access somewhere in a basement or garage or some corner and as a consequence that's where most will place their router/AP device.

If you are not isolated from the world, no matter how hard you try, your neighbor always ruins everything.
No matter how much you spend, if you don't insulate all windows, external walls, floor and roof, interference will always enter your home and ruin your signal.

Not even GSM reception

The bigger it is, the more directive it is. It allows you to focus the power in one direction/plane better.

So, in your opinion, the "bigger" an omnidirectional antenna is, the more directive it is... Interesting...

So, in your opinion, the "bigger" an omnidirectional antenna is, the more directive it is... Interesting...

Come on, he is probably trying to say that the doughnut is flatter.

So, in your opinion, the "bigger" an omnidirectional antenna is, the more directive it is... Interesting...

Possibly gold plated coat hangers ...

But You knew it, didn't You? You just ignored it

Not, not clearer, just louder. Assume that you are trying to listen to some music on your stereo, but in the next room some construction workers are using heavy tools that make so much noise that they are almost as loud as the music from your stereo. You will not be able to hear the music clearly, because the difference between the volume of the noise and the music does not allow you to differentiate the music clearly from the noise. It's the difference in volume that makes the music distinguishable from the noise. If both the music and the noise were to gain the same amount in volume the mix of music and noise would just be a lot louder overall, but you will still not be able to better differentiate the music from the noise despite the fact that the db value of the music has increased. That is what your AMP does: it makes the music and the noise louder, and both equally so. The relative difference between them (SNR - signal to noise ratio) remains the same.

• They are typically, but not always, higher-gain. This is usually, but not always, a benefit, since it increases the sensitivity of the AP, meaning your phone doesn't need to scream as loud to get its attention, contributing to either better range with stable connection (packets need to be acknowledged in 802.11), or maybe a little bit of an increase in your phone's battery life.
• They are significantly further away from the actual printed circuit board of the router, which potentially makes it easier for the signal radiating from them not to get blocked by the PCB. Router PCBs are mostly metal, and metal blocks electromagnetic radiation (not accounting for diffraction, of course).
• You can adjust external antennas to orient them in a way that gives you maximum performance. (You usually want them in such a position where if you imagine yourself looking at them through walls with your superman x-ray vision, they're at an angle greater than 30 degrees to each other, for every position you could be in while connected to the router)
• External antennas are sometimes replacable, and that's just plain nice in this depressing world where everything is increasingly made to last 1 year exactly and not be repairable after it breaks.

[*]They are typically, but not always, higher-gain. This is usually, but not always, a benefit, since it increases the sensitivity of the AP

[*]External antennas are sometimes replacable, and that's just plain nice in this depressing world where everything is increasingly made to last 1 year exactly and not be repairable after it breaks.

It's not always the size, for example the Antenna on the left is the best!

How did you determine that it's the best?

It's not always the size, for example the Antenna on the left is the best!

How did you determine that it's the best?

You do not open the left, probably is like what I posted before.

[*]They are typically, but not always, higher-gain. This is usually, but not always, a benefit, since it increases the sensitivity of the AP

So can hear better the interferencies.

In terms of stuff that would matter to you as a consumer, in one-AP setups, external stick antennas are usually better than typical internal antennas. The benefits, I think, are:

• <...>
• They are significantly further away from the actual printed circuit board of the router, which potentially makes it easier for the signal radiating from them not to get blocked by the PCB. Router PCBs are mostly metal, and metal blocks electromagnetic radiation (not accounting for diffraction, of course).
• <...>

So it'd be interesting to know how much diffraction actually factors into things.

the whole board is then engineered by various experts and inevitably there will be some compromises

So (I just want to make sure my understanding is correct) the PCB antenna is engineered together with the actual board, so that together they act in a way the engineers want them to act in? I.e. have a certain radiation pattern, gain, etc. Is this process limited by some constraints, like the Ethernet ports kinda blocking the way, or are the results typically roughly the same as having an external antenna and forget the PCB was ever there?

I don't think I observed any weirdness, like constructive or destructive interference

I couldn't find the post which I read years ago on that forum but it's sense was:

If you have bigger speaker and you are closer to it, it does not mean that the quality of the sound is better. It's just louder.

You mentioned "the signal'd get boosted by 20 dBm" ... I guess this indicates some kind of constructive interference, don't you?

In my opinion, I'd prefer less plastic, as a smaller antenna is easier on the eyes. Although I expect the rightmost antenna to perform the best, there might have been an engineering oversight. It's likely they designed it using CAD software and didn’t test it under real-world conditions.

If you have a VNA, it would be interesting to see the VSWR and log mag curves. Engineers often forget that plastic can alter an antenna's characteristics. They probably designed and tested the antenna without considering its behavior inside the plastic casing. With a VNA, you can see the characteristics of an antenna change in real-time as objects are placed near it, even things thought to be RF-transparent, like a simple piece of paper. Being 1 meter from the antenna, I could see a repercussion on the VNA just by moving my body a few centimeters. During antenna testing, it's very hard to remove all the variables. It's the reason why if an AP is performing badly, moving it just one centimeter, or changing the angle of an antenna by 5 degrees, can change things drastically. These things can't be simulated and must be performed in the field by trial and error.

Could you please re-run the test without the plastic? For an accurate test, please choose 5 locations and run the test from each. Given 3 antennas, that's 15 tests. Without doing that, you won't be able to convince me that the rightmost antenna is not the best. If you are willing, also test with plastic, for a total of 30 tests.

| Position   | Ant. 1          | Ant. 2          | Ant. 3          |
|------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|            | Sig.   | Thr.   | Sig.   | Thr.   | Sig.   | Thr.   |
| 1          | -66    | 398    | -67    | 502    | -65    | 320    |
| 2          | -66    | 498    | -67    | 503    | -72    | 344    |
| 3          | -83    | 154    | -83    | 156    | -81    | 113    |
| 4          | -68    | 356    | -61    | 540    | -65    | 505    |
| 5          | -65    | 542    | -68    | 385    | -71    | 401    |
| 6 (2.4g)   | N/C    | N/C    | -75    | 39     | -75    | 21     |

| Position     | Ant 1 | Ant 2 | Ant 3        |
|--------------|-------|-------|--------------|
| 1            | 398   | 502   | 320          |
| 2            | 498   | 503   | 344          |
| 3            | 154   | 156   | 113          |
| 4            | 356   | 540   | 505          |
| 5            | 542   | 385   | 401          |
| 6 (2.4g)     | N/C   | 39    | 21 (no case) |

| Position | 1   | 2   | 3   | 4   | 5   | 6 (2.4g)  |
|----------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----------|
| Ant 1    | 398 | 498 | 154 | 356 | 542 | N/C       |
| Ant 2    | 502 | 503 | 156 | 540 | 385 | 39        |
| Ant 3    | 320 | 344 | 113 | 505 | 401 | 21 (no case) |

| Position | 1    | 2      | 3      | 4      | 5    | 6 (2.4g) |
|----------|------|--------|--------|--------|------|----------|
| Ant 1    | -21% | -0.99% | -1.3%  | -34%   |      | N/C      |
| Ant 2    |      |        |        |        | -29% |          |
| Ant 3    | -36% | -32%   | -28%   | -6.5%  | -26% | -46%     |

Edit: Just for giggles i removed the sheath off the large antenna No3 before I remove it from the gym, 2.4g now connects -75 20.6Mbps

From what they write these are not simulations, they are field measures, though since the editor is US, the tested house is very likely to have "cardboard walls", which are not comparable with our (traditional) walls and not even with newish gypsum board ones (the americans tend to use wooden 2x4" for the structure while in EU metal profiles supports are generally used, which I suspect can form some kind of Faraday cage).

Classic problem caused by a lot of installers. They provide internet access somewhere in a basement or garage or some corner and as a consequence that's where most will place their router/AP device.

All wireless products with 802.11n support MIMO.

Mainstream home wireless routers in the market have several antennas, each of which can transmit and receive signals. You can simply determine the values of M and N in MIMO based on the number of antennas. For example, a wireless router with four antennas can be considered a 4x4 MIMO router. The actual MIMO capabilities, of course, are subject to the product specifications. A device with more antennas provides higher performance and also costs higher.

Plus in Mikrotik parlance, does number of chains = number of antennae = spatial streams?