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A DIYer's Quick Guide To Cheap Wireless Extension
An anonymous reader writes "This piece is described in one of the comments on it as 'a little piece of genius'... and I have to agree! Although Peter Cochrane seems a bit of a crack pot, the ways that he comes up with to get connected when he's out of range in the sticks are pure genius and he makes them appear really simple! Think old satellite dishes, USB dongles and plastic bags and you'd be on the right tracks to upping wi-fi signal by 4 bars." A perfect excuse to link to one of my favorite sites, if you want more details and photos on similar jury-rigged long-distance connections. However, your meterage may vary — I've found USB Wi-Fi devices to be pretty fickle under Linux, with some distros working way better than others.
Wouldn't it be nice if this technology was used to make a free citywide wireless internet? We just need a bunch of people with this ambition and it could be done. I once read a book, called When A Strange Comes To Town, in which some people had the same ambition. You can get the book from Project Gutenberg if you look around. It's a newer book that has never been copyrighted.
Please visit http://www.mederbil.com/ i7, GTX 275, 4 1TB Caviar Green in RAID 0+1 array, EVGA X58 3X SLI Board, Silver
Does anyone know of any attempts to use Rhombic Antennas with WiFi? They're very simple and provide huge gain. Their typical downside is that the length of one leg needs to be 8-12 wavelengths, which means they're the size of a football field when you're dealing with most radio frequencies, but 2 GHz has a 0.15m wavelength. A point-to-point rhombic should easily fit on the roof of a house.
Not a typewriter
everybody knows that old satellite dishes and Asian parabolic cookware can be used to boost wifi signals.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I get nervous when folks start talking about "free" services. Seems that more often than not, "free" actually means that I end up paying for power, bandwidth, and the army of bureaucrats that makes sure those bills get paid on time, and that their uncle's brother's company wins next year's bid.
So, please, count me out. I'll rig my own parabolic signal booster if and when I feel like it.
cogito ergo dubito
I found this great instruction on Instructables (pops new) on how to create a usb wifi out of a 2.00 strainer from WalMart. Works like a champ!
My friend lives across the Ohio River and we're able to send the signal across the river that way.
I'm too lazy to search for how many times the satellite dish wifi setup has been posted on slashdot, but suffice to say I had one on my roof 5 years ago after getting the idea from a web page that was itself a couple of years old. (even the actual useful link added on by the editor is from 2004)
It's not even a good writeup of the concept. Here's a summary of the "Genius":
-Stick it on the end of the arm.
-Electronics don't like water.
-The sun is hot.
There's nothing genius about this. It's a rehash of something people have done for years, sans details.
I am one of those long-time WiFi zealots, and it is clear to me that people just don't want free ubiquitous wireless internet -- or they just don't care.
Here in Pittsburgh, there is occasional talk of some group trying to do this. There have been some people who have received funding, but they waste it, and their project evaporates. Between ten and twenty (or more) companies start off here, and either fade away, or move to some other city. telerama, hobnob are the two that stick out (for which I remember URLs to).
Largest public network here is run by ONE GUY who just went and built it himself, Shadyside WiFi.
Otherwise, there is chatter on some of the local lists, but by and large, nobody wants free city-wide wireless Internet. Just me.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
... my own comment, yesterday?
10 years ago you might have had to improvise, but today you can get cheap high quality antennas and amplifiers that is a lot better than a USB dongle in an old satellite dish.
My favorite source is http://www.hyperlinktech.com/
and you can do your link analysis here:
http://cgi.gbppr.org/wireless.main.cgi
If you really need big distances, you can use an old 12' sattelite dish, but otherwise stick to the formula above. It will save you a lot of time and trouble.
I have reliable links over 10km with 10mW running at 50Mb/s
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
It's not that easy - and you might be better off just buying a cheap unidirectional antennae I live in a rural community and a 3G USB dongle several months ago. The low signal strength meant I was on the slow end of the speed for 3G. I tried the exact thing he did, but tried some other options as well. First, I purchased a $50 unidirectional antennae. That improved my signal strength by 10db. That was enough to get me to the range of 1300 down and 400 up consistently, with full "bars". So then I unplugged the antennae, added a couple of active USB cables, and put the dongle on the roof (1 story up). That improved my signal 5 db without the antennae, and 3 db with the antennae. So now I had improved about 13db. Finally, I grabbed my old dish, and aimed it at the cell tower. Then I put the dongle in place of the amp unit. Please note that most dishes have offset amp units, so you dish looks like it's aimed "below" the tower. It helped several decibles. I replaced the unidirection antennae and put in the dishes sweet spot, and it got me nothing more. Short version - I was better off elevating the dongle and attaching a cheap unidirectional antenna than I was playing with the dish. I suspect that will be true of most who play around with this. Final note - I have experience making other antennas - AM, FM, etc. I can assure you it wasn't lack of knowledge that prevented any huge increase in signal when using the dish.
I rarely do this, but this AC is making the only point that needs to be made here. My own home router could comfortably serve a block of my neighborhood including the nearby park (I tried) but I'm not going to open it up because under US law I will go to jail if someone uses my open WiFi to download childporn or some such.
The cost to me would be minimal and I'd set the QOs such that the freeloaders wouldn't interfere with my own activities -- and if everybody did that, we'd already have free ubiquitous wifi in all cities in the US. Because there's always some server around somewhere -- it's been forever since I truly got a "NO networks found". They're just all locked down like crazy because of the absurd US laws that hold a communications provider (me!) responsible for what clients do with the services they provide for free out of the goodness of their hearts...
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.