Disclaimer: I'm a total noob at anything radio or electronics (and would appreciate an education on this topic from someone who isn't!)
> A 10dbi gain yagi boosts your transmitted and received signal equally
I don't see how this can be true, as long as you're not arguing semantics and actually want to use the wifi. Wouldn't you need two identical routers outfitted with high gain directional antennas pointing at each other? That's easy to do when you control both of them, but the subject under discussion is connecting to public wifi of a router you do not control.
Surely a big antenna pointing directly at a router with a tiny antenna will send signals with more clarity than it receives them. The tiny antenna is broadcasting a weak signal in all directions, and the big antenna is transmitting a strong signal in one direction.
I believe that the big antenna could "pick up" some parts of the radio waves from the router, but wouldn't most environments be too noisy for your receiver to find any useful signal? By the time the already weak radio wave gets to your antenna, it's dissipated so much that you couldn't possibly read enough of it to put a meaningful signal back together, right?
> A 10dbi gain yagi boosts your transmitted and received signal equally
I don't see how this can be true, as long as you're not arguing semantics and actually want to use the wifi. Wouldn't you need two identical routers outfitted with high gain directional antennas pointing at each other? That's easy to do when you control both of them, but the subject under discussion is connecting to public wifi of a router you do not control.
Surely a big antenna pointing directly at a router with a tiny antenna will send signals with more clarity than it receives them. The tiny antenna is broadcasting a weak signal in all directions, and the big antenna is transmitting a strong signal in one direction.
I believe that the big antenna could "pick up" some parts of the radio waves from the router, but wouldn't most environments be too noisy for your receiver to find any useful signal? By the time the already weak radio wave gets to your antenna, it's dissipated so much that you couldn't possibly read enough of it to put a meaningful signal back together, right?