monitoring Bluetooth & Wireless

[alok]

Did not know where I should have posted this here in radioreference . . . if you move it please let me know where it went, thank you.

Any pointers on bettering my antenna to do Bluetooth and Wireless monitoring ? Right now I assume the antenna in my PC is being used by the two softwares I use to monitor both.
Is there something I could do ,like build a small directional antenna to point it in different directions to see what I get ? How would you get that into PC ? For both Bluetooth and Wireless signals.
What frequencies are we talking about ,I think 2.4 and 5 Ghz ?
By the way for Bluetooth I am using Bedford from " the-sz.com " ( they recommended it ) ,it seems to work decently ,are they any others out there for Bluetooth.
What is the best Wireless monitoring software, I use now inSSIDer.

Thank You,

Al

 

[cmjonesinc]

You can buy USB adapters with removable antennas for either. Then just attach a better antenna. Something similar to this Amazon.com: ALFA AWUS036NEH Long Range WIRELESS 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USBAdapter: Computers & Accessories there's also tons of aftermarket antennas for long range wifi.

 

[ko6jw_2]

A better solution for Wi-Fi might be using a wireless router that has beam forming antennas to direct the signal where it is most needed. The Amazon device is simply a Wi-Fi receiver without any special capabilities. I had a similar device many years ago that gave Bluetooth capability to older PC's before such things were built it. I have a large home and use three Apple Airport Expresses and an Airport Extreme as the base unit. One of the Expresses operates in the bridge mode. It takes the ethernet signal from the computer and sends it out to the Extreme. With a switch this allows me to connect several ethernet devices to the same Express. I also used to use a Netgear wireless ethernet device in the same way. This method gives a lot of flexibility and allows the Express to be placed in a position out in the clear away from the computer. The difference in speed is measurable plus you can connect other devices like the sender unit for my weather station.