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Topic: Parabolic reflector, Helps with wireless networking

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newOldUser Offline

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Posts: 241
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: Nov. 07 2005,22:38

One wireless computer that I use it just at the edge of the range for my wireless router (the walls, floor and furnace in between probably don't help much). I found this web page on building a parabolic reflector and thought I'd give it a shot.

It took about 15 minutes (most of that in printing out the template correctly) to build this out of aluminum foil covered cardboard. I'm not saying it increased the signal one-hundred fold but it helped enough that the computer no longer drops connection to the network .

I tried it on the router side first then on the usb network device side. It worked better when I used it to reflect onto the usb network device.

Hope it helps someone else. Here's the site.
Parabolic Reflector site

The trick is to get the one-inch square to print out as a one-inch square.

Good luck

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AwPhuch

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Posted: Nov. 10 2005,20:50

Kewl!

Any idea on how much gain you actually got??

check out the homebuilt Cantenna which gives tons more gain (there is a commercial ready to go Cantenna )...there is even a very very simple and cheap highgain omni antenna that would work

Good luck

Brian
AwPhuch

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ke4nt1

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Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,22:39

Here is another site with many links for wardriving antennas..

http://www.binarywolf.com/249/

Many of these I have constructed, and they work fine.

As to the mini-quarter-wave omni, antenna listed above,

if it's an omni design, the words "High-Gain" may be misleading..

( usually, an isotropic point source, ( dbi ) or a dipole ( dbd )
are used for measurement comparisons.. )

An omni quarter-wave should fall somewhere in-between.

While a cantenna should have nearly 6-9dbd of true gain.

73
ke4nt

newOldUser Offline

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Posts: 241
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: Nov. 10 2005,23:18

AwPhuch,

Here's the extent of my radio/antenna/wireless knowledge...... The little meter thingy went from 1 out of 5 bars being lite to 2 out of 5 bars being lite.... A whooping 20% increase in meter-bar thingies....and now the computer stays connected.

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chickenman Offline

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Posts: 113
Joined: Aug. 2004

Posted: Nov. 11 2005,04:02

20% is pretty rough, what if it was like 14% before and 15% after and the computer rounded it?, thats a 1% improvement...

(or it could be less)

I'm sure theres more accurate guides out there. I improved the range of our wireless by swapping the crappy little antenna that was on the access point to a wired antenna that came with one of our wireless pci cards. But I couldnt tell you the diffrence because my computer is so close to the damn thing it just sat on 100% before and after, I didnt record the dBM values -but I can go get them if anyone actually cares...

4 replies since Nov. 07 2005,22:38

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Damn Small Linux Board » Non-DSL Topics » Cool Things » Parabolic reflector