I picked up a Netgear WNR834B two months ago, and it’s been doing pretty well replacing my Linksys WRT54G v4. It runs DD-WRT and I have it set up to broadcast two wireless networks: my secure network with WPA2-AES, and a less secure, isolated network with WEP encryption that lets my mobile/embedded devices that may not be able to handle the AES encryption (Palm TX, Zune, HTC Excalibur, Nintendo DSi) onto the internet.

The signal wasn’t that fantastic at the other end of my apartment, though. Lots of people on the DD-WRT forums were getting a lot better results with modding the antennas on the router, so I did too. After finding compatible antennas on eBay, all I had to do was open up the router, enlarge the holes in the grate at the top to fit an RP-SMA connector through (easy task with the Dremel), plug in the pigtails to the board, and screw on the new antennas.

And there’s the results of the mod! The router is sitting in front of the cable modem, and both are on top of my TV computer.

This second photo is a comparison of the antennas. On the right, the dinky little internal antenna, and on the left the giant 11″ 7dBi antenna I added on.

I tested the new configuration and there was a drastic improvement, even at a close range of 1 m. I tested with my Thinkpad X200 Tablet (my only 802.11n device) on a WPA2 AES secured network, and here are the results:

Pretty slick! The router cost $20 refurbished, and the antennas cost $20 for 4 (I do have one extra if anyone wants it). So for $40 I have a router that performs fast enough to transmit 1080p video from a SiliconDust HDHomeRun with plenty of head room! I think my next upgrade is going to be a dual band (2.4GHz + 5GHz) 802.11n router. I can easily get 7-8 MB/s (56-64 Mb/s) on the wireless network at UK, so it might be worth the plunge in the future.