I imagine my setup is similar to a lot of home, with one tiny tweak I improved my wifi speed, so thought it was worth sharing something most of you might find obvious! I have a 100mb Virgin Fibre connection coming into my front room downstairs. My main system is in the spare room upstairs (front bedroom, directly above the router). My router has 3 aerials sticking out the back and I've always had these pointing pretty much upwards, as I suspect most people will do. I read an article this morning that said most standard wifi aerials are essentially designed to radiate outwards in a flat circular disc from the tip, giving the greatest horizontal coverage possible. If this is true, then by simply tipping 1 of my 3 aerials on it's side (so that it lays completely horizontally rather than vertically), I should be able to redirect one of those discs upwards, straight into the bedroom above. Just tried it. 5 speed tests before the change, my average download speed was 74.36MB 5 speed tests after the change, my average download speed is now 112.24MB I might just be an idiot and everyone knows this already, but if not, hope it helps!
It's kind of a doughnut shape for your standard antenna, but you can get all sorts of neat gain patterns with different antenna types. If you search the data sheets on higher end access points or standalone antennas, they include a 2 axis drawing of the patterns. Just keep in mind that each antenna is part of the MIMO setup, so what you gain one way you may lose on the other. The separate antennas can transmit/receive different spacial streams (more speed), combine the antennas to boost a weak signal (more range) or even beamform (wikipedia it).
