Slashdot Mirror
Portable Wi-Fi Antenna for Centrino Laptops?
Quinthar asks: "For years I've been reading of amazing extensions to wifi-range, but they always seem to include external hardware rather than what's built into regular laptops. As wifi makes it almost everywhere, is there anything I can use to eek out extra coverage in the coffeeshops? I've read of USB antennae -- are these snakeoil? If not USB, how else can I plug a real antenna into a simple Centrino chipset without the hassle of an external card? My dream would be a tiny parabolic dish with a tripod that folds up neatly. Does such a thing exist? Can I hold a Pringles can up to the right spot and expect results? Basically, what are my options, and which do you recommend?"
Remember that the 100M is under rather good conditions .Also 100M can be a rather annoying tether if you have to work 101M + away from your router
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
If you're going to be carrying around an antenna anyway, is there a compelling reason not to get a cheap wireless pcmcia card and use that instead of the internal wireless hardware?
At the very least, that might be a nice way to start. If you're going to modify hardware, better to start with a $15 network card rather than your laptop. Then, if you discover that the external antenna doesn't help you much (because it's a pain to carry around, or because the places you hang out are still too far away from access points), you won't have to worry about returning the laptop to its internal antenna. And, if by some chance you screw up and break something, you'll be stuck with a broken network card rather than a wrecked laptop.
As far as finding some way to improve your reception without modifying the hardware, you're probably out of luck. Outside of building some sort of active repeater (which would be expensive, potentially illegal, and a much bigger pain to carry around than any alternative), it's hard to think of a way improve the antenna in the laptop itself.
If you want to get silly, you could carry around a large (meter size) parabolic dish and hold your laptop at the focus of it. Not very practical, but it could be fun, and is sure to lead to interesting conversations. If you can find an appropriately shaped umbrella and a few rolls of metal tape, you might be able to make a more portable version. It's possible you could even build some sort of passive reflector out of wire, if you know how the internal antenna is oriented or you're willing to jump into a lot of trial and error.
Namely, he still has to pull the antenna wire out of his laptop somehow, and insert it into the can.
I don't understand how the OP thinks he's going to pull this off without some serious hardware hacking.
+++ATH0