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Boost a Weak 3G Modem Signal, With a Saucepan
modeca writes "Using only commonly available kitchen equipment this guy demonstrates the amazing powers of an ordinary metal pan to boost the 3G reception of his USB modem. It really seems to work, check the right hand side of the graph in the video."
It's not that crazy: cheap antenna boosting (for USB WiFi dongles, Bluetooth, and more) has been elevated to a fine art in New Zealand.
isn't it?
Who knew that tinfoil hats actually _boosted_ reception. It's a government conspiracy I tell you.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
a pantenna.
THL phish sticks
You can find plans for aluminum foil and cardboard reflectors in many places as well. Here's one now!
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/
They work great.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
New Zeland appears to have been Slashdotted.
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
I'm gonna buy up 10,000 of those pans and sell them on Ebay as a "Hi-tech USB modem booster" for $69.95. That is until IBM patents the pan.
Table-ized A.I.
Between my liking for my wife's prawn crackers and my need for a good 3G signal.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It works so well that now I can get all the MacGyver episodes.
Table-ized A.I.
Isn't the real value here for wifi hijackers? Why park suspiciously outside the house/cafe with an open wifi node when you can snag it from out of sight?
Why not? I already have a GPS, mini binoculars, a radio scanner, a flash light, an external hard drive, a 20x zoom camera, multiple cables, a AAA/AA battery fast charger, batteries, a USB r/c flight sim controller (Realflight), a Logitec gamepad, a graphics tablet and a laptop in my backpack. I figure if I ever get into trouble and get searched the authorities will already think I'm some sort of hyper-nerd spy anyway. Heck if I didn't have to face the consequences it would be a laugh to catch a plane and cross into the US with my backpack just to see the look on TSA drone's face. Why not add a frypan to the mix? Now if only I could work out a way to fit a kitchen sink in my backpack.
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If you put on Mormon underwear and face east, you can receive signals from Voyager II.
can someone explain what the pot is doing? Is it acting as a focusing/collimating device? Because if that were the case, I would expect the signal to be focused in the up direction, which I doubt is where the average wireless signal is coming from. Or is it somehow providing a larger surface area for signal collection in all directions, and focusing it internally to the modem? But I don't understand how that would work. Would love to hear a cogent explanation.
He is probably located in a wifi-dead spot where singals bouncing off various buildings/objects causes some of them to arrive out of phase and cancel out. By placing the antenna in a pan, the signals are only arriving (mostly) from one direction and the out-of-phase signals are being blocked.
No magic. Just math. He certainly isnt using the pan as a reflector which then would more accurately 'boost' the signal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=djssaY1O5MM
no. they'll just think you're a fucking loser. it's sad that you brag about this shit.
...TSA drone's face...
TSA personnel aren't drones. Drones have been much more effective.
THL phish sticks
I can't believe I still subscribe to slashdot RSS feeds. All I get is crap like this and stories that I saw two days ago on other sites. Talk about going down hill...
fuck that was funny
I've seen stuff about people using woks and TV satellite dishes to boost signal power, so there's nothing surprising about saucepans doing it too. I'd be interested to see a comparison of these improvised devices with "proper" boosters. Would I be better off saving my money and just rigging up an old wok instead?
http://ihatehate.wordpress.com
Sorry for the meta, but this is one of the funniest things i have read in a long time.
The look on the guys faces would be priceless.
Also, i am sure it would be fairly easy to make a fold-up sink. Pipes and fittings detachable.
Making it watertight at the bends is the only problem. I guess there could be another separate plate that you insert in to the sink to create a near perfect seal.
I came accross the USB Wifi site by accident a couple years back. I recalled seeing the dim-sum scoops in the local chinese mini-mart up the road, so I went up and bought one (NZ$4.50), and leaned it behind my modem's wireless antenna, then went to my garage sleepout for guests, which previously was out of range. Using NetStumbler, I watched the graph while a friend adjusted the scoop in the house. It went up to a usable "Good/Excellant" signal.
I havent investigated why, but a wire mesh scoop seems better than a sold dish(Engineers will know I am sure).
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
This is not actually bad quality flamebait.
Especially for Slashdot.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I guarantee they'll be there for hours ignoring the hi-tech and working out the significance of the frying pan.
The approach works equally well with WiMax (clear.com). I am 5 miles from a tower, but get plenty of signal using a simple Al foil reflector. Boost was about 6 dBm.
Coming up next, make a peppercorn sauce with a 3G Modem Antenna.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
In response to Verizon's "Map" ads, All AT&T 3G phones now come with a skillet. A new iPhone ad states: "Frying bacon and eggs for breakfast? There's an app for that"
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Ford wrench, teflon tape.
...against all expectations on my USB modem using a metal bowl I had lying around (think of a paraboloid with a flat bottom). Boosted download speeds on 3 consecutive tests by 50% (with bowl over without). Also, 3 tests in a row with no bowl showed some variation, but didn't peak at the same speed as with the bowl. Whod've thunk it.
imagine how many starving children could be fed with a Beowulf cluster of these
It's a parabolic reflector. Who knew? Sauces for the hungry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi http://digg.com/hardware/WokFi_Wi_Fi_on_the_cheap
Spraying it down with Pam prevents the radio waves from sticking; worth at least 10 extra Mbps.
I think you too high opinion of you and your "tech" gear that you carry...... where you see "hyper-nerd spy", I'm seeing a damn dweeb that thinks a AAA/AA battery charger is nerd spy gear.
it may be shielding it from an interference source and not necessarily "boosting" the signal, it might be lowering the noise - there is lots of crap at 2.4 GHz, cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.. strong interferes will look like poor signal strength since the signal to noise ratio is low... just a thought...
Don't forget the Fleshlight.
Already knew about this sort of stuff.. Kids these days ..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Seriously, Mark Erickson covered this years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY8Wi7XRXCA
Mark Erickson is awesome.
http://www.tennatron.co.nz/cellphone/ get the stats.
Then build own.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Wow, suddenly I understand the pot that came as part of my Rogers 3G USB dongle package!
What, no towel? Every hoopy frood carries a towel.
John
My guess is that the pot is filtering out other sources of RF noise and so the link data speed can increase. His graph does not show RF gain, only data speed, so it's a bit hard to tell what is actually going on.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Does anyone else think this guy sounds like the Onyxia wipe guy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
This is totally bogus. Sure, it _looks_ like there's some correlation here, but this graph is measuring data thruput and nothing about the changes (if any actual) to the wireless reception _or transmission_ characteristics. We don't know if he has an _interference source_ that's actually his problem, nor do we know what's happening to the _receive quality at the cell tower_ as a result (or non-result) of putting it in the pan. If we can't see the factors like link quality, rssi, retrans %, receiver rssi, power, the effect of reflections and so forth, there's no way to say with any certaintly that "putting it in the pan" actually "improves" 3g or not or under what conditions such a move is likely to have positive benifits. use your head.
"Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please."
"A goddamn cook!"
USB modem, to me, means a modem connected via USB port instead of serial port. It'll still attach to a phone line (POTS, plain old telephone system). In fact, I am using a USB modem right now to send faxes and such. Where to Buy Lean Muscle x
It's called an N900.
Down there, in the land of sheep the worst thing that can happen to you is to be outside a settlement. There are no GSM signals as soon as you're 10km away from a village so this saucepan could just make it to my survival kit.
German c't magazine recently published an interesting design for a directional WiFi antenna (about 9 dBi gain) which can be built from materials lying around in most households (not in mine, though - unless someone invents an antenna made out of discarded pizza cartons):
Example (he should have been more careful with the length and spacing of the wires)
The original article in c't (German)
Doesn't do much good for 11n, though, as that standard uses several antennas and the signal processing algorithms are optimized to use their specific characteristics.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Hello this is not newsworthy at all, anyone remember "Cantenaes" when wifi first rolled out? Or my personal fave, the spageti strainer parabolic for a wifi usb stick.
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