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Using an Old Satellite Dish as a WLAN Antenna

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the rolling-your-own dept.

=m8s=Dark Underlord writes "I was browsing for wireless stuff and came across this link that shows how to use an old satellite dish as an 802.11 antenna." The directions tout the range as being 10 miles given line of sight. We've had other stories about building antennas, but I think these are cooler because of their focused nature, but a Primestar dish is a little tougher to locate than a Pringles can or a floppy disk.

1 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:For $15 more you get the real thing by djh101010 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly my thoughts - I have several DirectTV dishes lying around that I was going to use for a 1.1 mile 802.11b link, and it just wasn't worth the hassle. The offset feedhorn makes mounting (and the math) inconvenient, and to me it wasn't worth the risk of, ahem, going beyond the 24 dBi of gain that the FCC allows. Better to be able to point to published specs for each piece of gear, and cable losses, and explain how you're not exceeding the legal limits. Yeah it's cool and all that, but what's the gain of these? (I don't know either). is it worth taking a chance?

    For what it's worth, two Linksys WAP11's in bridge mode, and two directional 24dBi gain antennae, and my link is rock solid at 1.1 miles.