idea for wifi antenna

[OverlordCheese]

Now, I know that this is probably pretty stupid, so that's out of the way.

I was wondering if it is feasible to have multiple wifi antennas, and using something like an opamp, combine their outputs so that we get the same signal but at a much higher strength, then feed it into a computer.

Basically, I want to be able to combine wifi antennas, and I was wondering how i can do so

[antenna]

What you are describing is called a phased array.  You'll have a little impedance matching to do    

One of the problems is that, unless it is a router with just one antenna, most routers are mimo and use more than one antenna for communication with the target device.  In that case, you will be looking at multiple phased arrays working together or you might end up with a router that really sucks at it's intended job and performs worse than a single-antenna router.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

Another potential down-side for applications like WiFi is that an antenna array has higher gain. So you make it more sensitive in one direction, but at the same time, you lose sensitivity in every other direction. So it will only actually make things better provided that the other device you are communicating is in the direction you want.

It is really quite similar to a lenses in optics. By getting a higher zoom lens, you see more clearly a small area, but the area you can see becomes larger. So that is great if what you want to see is in your field of view, but if you don't know, it will make it much harder than with a 'less zoomy' lens.