DIY Wi-Fi Booster Antenna - for FREE!

[Nick]

It's not very often we get something for nothing that is truly useful -- unless it's cash from our late Uncle Louie's estate! :)

This simple-to-make little parabolic reflector, designed for 2.4 mHz devices, is not only free, it works! It's one of those clever little ideas that will make you slap yourself on the forehead, saying "Why didn't I think of that!" Slide this Ez-12 Parabolic Reflector (http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html) on your wireless router's dipole to "focus" the signal, increasing the gain by 9-12dB and extending the range, turning your omni-directional antenna into a more efficient directional RF emitter.

Thanks, and a tip of the top-hat to the guys at www.freeantennas.com for this design

[pjmrt]

Cool! I have trouble with reception in parts of the house, so I might just give this a try.

[Steve Mehs]

A guy that I met in college built his own parabolic wifi dish and was able to get connections from all over the place, especially when he bounced the signal off of the water tower across the street from his house. He was an internet pirate and surfed on other people unencrypted connections. The time I was over, using Net Stumbler he had access to something like 65 unsecured wireless networks. One of them was the one located by my school that I could connect to on my PDA . Don’t know what the distance was as the crow flies, but in terms of driving, this guys house was 18 miles away from the ITT campus according to MapQuest.

As far as I know the record is still 125 miles.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

This is pretty interesting stuff, never had the time to do any of it myself, the guy is a HAM radio operation and has a wealth of knowledge when it came to frequencies and all that.

[Bogy]

This is a timely reminder that a poorly constructed tin foil hat could act not as a shield, but could actually function as a parabolic reflector.

[HIPAR]

It's amazing how many wireless networks are operating. My network started to act 'flaky' so I cranked up Netstumbler and discovered two new strong signal networks on my channel. Although there are 11 G type channels, in practice only a few fit into the band without signal overlap. I experimented with channel selection and, for now, have things working again although I needed to return to my 900 Mhz wireless phone.

I guess an A type network is the ultimate solution. However, if the problem returns, I'll try a directional antenna first.

--- CHAS