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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.
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.
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.
I'm suspecting that the pot is shielding the modem from a nearby source of interference. There's probably 3G signal arriving from above (e.g., from a tower), and it will certainly be scattered by various objets d'home so that some signal will be available from the vertical. Since the modems typically have rancid selectivity, the source of interference doesn't even have to be in the 3G band -- it could be a Wi-Fi access point, microwave oven, or any number of other things.
...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.
Spraying it down with Pam prevents the radio waves from sticking; worth at least 10 extra Mbps.
What is sad is the trolls and flamebaits have gotten so bad here that you would think that. Sigh...once upon a time Slashdot used to be home to the greatest trolls and flamers in the world bar none. We had guys that spent ages making very intricate and truly vulgar ASCII art, trolls that would go on for three or four pages before they got to the eating poop or incestuous sex, I mean you could really tell they put a lot of heart into it, you know?
Personally I blame digg and the chans. They have lowered the bar on trolling so badly that true artisans of the troll have left the hallowed halls for Slashdot for places where their malevolence and mischief will be appreciated, like working at Comcast, Goldman Sachs, or lobbying congress. It really is a shame, as another great art is slowly suffocated by the "dumbing down" of mass market appeal. The great trolls long past are looking down from under that great bridge in the sky and hanging their heads in shame. Truly a sad end for what was once a noble profession.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.