Need advice getting a USB Wifi Booster

What's the brand name and model name and exact model number of your laptop?
What Windows version is it running?

Go into the Device Manager, then expand the Network Adapters heading.
What's the exact name of the wireless device listed there?

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You need help in the "Networking" section, so I requested your thread be moved there.
Once it's been moved, one of the networking experts there can hopefully help you.

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moved.

 

You need to get a wireless adapter which has the ability to use an external antenna and has high transmit power. I don't know what WiFi booster you purchased, but most likely it will not work.

There was a wireless adapter from Ubiquiti called the SR71 that many wireless professionals used as it had the ability to use an external antenna and had high transmit power. The SR71 has long been discontinued.

Doing a search on Amazon yielded this adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/High-Gain-Long-Rang-Alfa-9dBi-Mount/dp/B0038Q4AIG

Not sure how well it works but it seems to get good reviews.

 

And to your question about gain. It's the amount of directivity the antenna provides in it's radiation pattern. For an omni directional antenna, the higher the gain, the more squished the donut radiation pattern will be extending further out in the horizontal axis. But the vertical axis would get less coverage. There also seems to be some possible signal loss in the middle of the radiation pattern with increased gain. Here's an illustration of this with an omni-directional antenna:

http://www.l-com.com/content/Article.aspx?Type=L&ID=10175

The same principle applies to directional antennas except with the higher the gain, the more focused (less spread there is across all axis'.

 

Just because hackers may want to use that wireless NIC I linked to doesn't mean it's the only use for it. The reason war drivers want to use a NIC like that is because of its performance at distance. It has a high transmit power radio. That's what you need for your situation. Wireless is a two way street. It does you no good to pick up a signal from a wireless network when you can't send a signal back to the wireless network at distance.

 

The bolded part of your response is incorrect. With wireless, the speed at which two wireless devices communicate to each is definitely dependent on the range at which these two devices are from each other.

 

Your statements are making things too simplistic. No one was asserting speed determines the range. The OP desires a specific speed at a certain range. There are ways to achieve this within reason.