Can a wifi antenna be overpowered, as in too high mw?

I have a Superpass 50dbm 1000mw long range wifi antenna. The circuit board inside the antenna was damaged when the it fell down one day.

I assume the circuit board is rated at 1000mw. However if I buy a 6000mw wifi card with the proper antenna connector will it damage the antenna because of the 5 extra watts? I don't think it would harm the antenna, but rather make it more powerful and increase the range. But I don't really know so that's why I'm asking because I don't want to burn up a $150 wifi antenna.

oaklandtony

Posted 2014-04-10T19:05:04.420

Reputation: 23

Answers

Antennas are just passive chunks of metal. Your Superpass device is much more than an antenna. It's a USB Wi-Fi NIC, with either a built-in (on the same circuit board) or external (not on the same circuit board, but in the same enclosure) high power amplifier, and then an antenna.

Since you've seen inside this box and I haven't, you'll have to tell me whether or not the amplifier was part of the card that fell out, or if there's still a powered amplifier inside the enclosure, that the old Wi-Fi card fed into.

If there's still an amp in there, you need to look up the specifications for that amp and feed it signals within its specified input levels so it can amplify them without clipping or distorting. If it was designed to take a 1mW input and amplify it to 1000mW, it probably can't handle a 6000mW input.

But if all that's left in the box is a passive antenna ("just a chunk of metal"), you're not going to cause it any problems by going from 1W to 6W.

Spiff

Posted 2014-04-10T19:05:04.420

Reputation: 84 656

I guess it's just a passive antenna that's left. There's just a big ol square of circuit board type material with big strips of copper with a bit of wire coming out of the center that screws onto the circuit board that broke. – oaklandtony – 2014-04-11T13:28:25.767

@oaklandtony In that case, your 6W WNIC should work fine. It probably exceeds regulatory limits, but I won't tell anyone. – Spiff – 2014-04-11T19:09:10.727

Simply put, if your TX is set too high, the antenna will cause reflection noise for itself - Similar to screaming in a concrete room doesn't make it more easy to understand, as the listener will get a lot of echo as well.

It is recommended to experiment with various values to try to achieve the most signal to noise ratio.

Apart from that, make sure you have the gain set to whatever your antenna is made for, and ofcourse, that the wireless circuitry doesn't fry itself after too much juice being pushed out.

Jarmund

Posted 2014-04-10T19:05:04.420

Reputation: 5 155

So should I not use a 6000mw wifi card. – oaklandtony – 2014-04-10T19:43:31.180

that would make most of the $ invested in your antenna a waste. – Jarmund – 2014-04-10T20:12:34.657

I seem to recall that VSWR is a function of impedance mismatch between the antenna cable and the antenna. It's not a function of the input power. – Spiff – 2014-04-10T20:38:48.627