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4km WiFi Range w/ $5 DIY Antenna

Posted by timothy on from the try-uwajimaya dept.

Mignon writes "This industrious fellow in New Zealand made his own WiFi antenna using a USB WiFi adapter and a Chinese 'spider skimmer mesh scoop.' He got about 17 dB signal improvement for about US $5 in materials." Update: 05/25 23:09 GMT by T : Reader John Stockdale offers a U.S. hosted mirror of the site. Update: 05/26 13:58 GMT by T : Reader Jared Mauch contributes another mirror.

5 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why haven't AP manufacturers tried this? by Carnildo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder if there are hidden shortcomings to this technique. If it only costs $5, I would think that manufacturers of wireless access points would have implemented this a long time ago (or at least made it available as a $40 add on).

    The most likely shortcoming is that it probably violates the FCC rules about how much power an unlicensed transmitter can put out.

    --
    "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
  2. Re:freecache link by JonLatane · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Could that be because it's designed for 5+MB files, and there aren't many HTML pages that are that size? Don't waste their bandwidth (besides, the server is down anyway, before it was even cached).

  3. Too bad it's directional by pedantic+bore · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The antenna is directional so this kind of range isn't that helpful unless the two end points are stationary. Which is exactly the kind of thing I don't use wireless for...



    I guess it's a neat hack if that's the only way to communicate with your friend 4Km away, and you only have one friend (or your one friend has a nice network connection to the rest of the world and is willing to share).

    --
    Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
  4. Nice work by Beuno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good to know some people are still trying to improve technology remembering that not everybody has 1 trilion dollars a month to spend on over-priced gadgets.

    Good work!

  5. Re:Dangers of this kind of ad hoc device by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The limit for 802.11b is 100mW (0.1 Watts) of transmitted power. Even a cheapass microwave oven puts out 500+ Watts. There's probably more radiation coming at you due to leakage from the microwave oven than from this antenna, no matter how much gain it has.