anyone got a loan of some gear to boost wifi signal

zero_mac

hi,
i've just moved to ranelagh and i ordered irish broadband, but they said it will be several weeks before it's installed. there's an AP across the road i can almost connect to, but it's not reliable (about 80 Signal/Noise usually) i have an internal 802.11b wifi card (WLAN Prism3 WM168) with a small detachable external antenna. i've tried moving around the computer and the antenna a lot but it's still not a strong enough signal.
i read about the pringles can antenna, but i'd say it's beyond my ability to build it. would anyone have the loan of some equipment i could use for a few weeks until i get my own broadband set up? i'd be happy to pay for it.
cheers

p.s. here's a picture of my current wifi antenna + connection

Gone West

zero_mac wrote:

hi,
i've just moved to ranelagh and i ordered irish broadband, but they said it will be several weeks before it's installed. there's an AP across the road i can almost connect to, but it's not reliable (about 80 Signal/Noise usually) i have an internal 802.11b wifi card (WLAN Prism3 WM168) with a small detachable external antenna. i've tried moving around the computer and the antenna a lot but it's still not a strong enough signal.
i read about the pringles can antenna, but i'd say it's beyond my ability to build it. would anyone have the loan of some equipment i could use for a few weeks until i get my own broadband set up? i'd be happy to pay for it.
cheers

p.s. here's a picture of my current wifi antenna + connection

Tbh, get a sheet of cardboard or plastic, and wrap it a few times in tinfoil. Bend it into a V or a C shape and put it behind your antanea.
/
| o <<< {{Source of Signal}}
\

the 'o' represents the antenae, and the / is the sheet of card with tinfoil.
If you carefully and slowly move the tinfoil back and forth closer and further away from the antenae, you will reach a 'sweet spot' This will be 1/2 or 1/4 a wavelength.
You will notice your signal bumping up to mabye -70 or -65 signal strength.
At the moment you only have 20% signal strength. This will only be enough to capture beacon frames. To get authed and get transferring data, you will need at least 27.5% signal strength.

Hopefully this will help.

Also, reduce your 802.11b card speed to mabye 1/2 mbps rather than 'automatic speed'. This should help as well.

Last point is that you do realise that connecting to someone elses wireless network without their permission is against the law. Invasion of privacy, theft of resources, etc.
Make sure that you get permission to use the network before you do!

Hope I've helped.

zero_mac

hi fuzzy,
thanks a million for the tip. i tried that and it worked quite well, but hard to get it stay in place with the antenna. what i ended up doing was printing out a cardboard template from here and making a simple reflector dish to fit around the antenna. it gave me a much better signal. for anyone else out there it really isn't as scary as it sounds, with all the techie talk of wavelengths and focal points. it's more like barney and friends (in terms of simplicity).

yes thanks for the tip about getting permission, the guy is sound out and he said no problem.

cheers
tim

Gone West

Yep, glad to see it worked out fine for you.
Most people dont realise that tinfoil will reflect and focus EM radiation at 2.4~ghz quite well.