Here's the Hills BC7243 13dBi flat panel antenna, similar to the smaller one that caught my eye at CeBIT. This one would be all most Unwired users would need.

Elsewhere in this issue, we report on a brief visit to the CeBIT show in Sydney. Like many of the exhibitors at that show, Hills Antenna & TV displayed a range of wireless equipment antennas and equipment.

"Ho hum, not more . . . hang on, what’s this?" The item that caught my eye was a small (150mm square?) panel antenna, labelled "Show Special: 3.5GHz, 7dB External Antenna for Unwired modems. . ."

Huh? How can you hook up an external antenna to an Unwired modem?

When we looked at the Unwired broadband system we were reasonably impressed with its performance, if not its coverage. (I have to tell you that not much has changed in coverage, especially in our area).

I have installed a permanent Unwired system and even though I pay for the top (1024) service, I have never found it to even approach that speed. Most of the time, it’s way under that.

Apparently, the reason for the slow speed is that I am right on the edge of the Unwired service area. All I ever get is the "red" indicator LED – they say that means good, even though it’s the minimum usable signal level. An orange LED means very good, a green LED excellent. Not that I have ever seen those colours. (The LEDs would probably be better labelled marginal, reasonable and good).