Homemade wifi antenna

[Krumlink]

A year ago or so my wifi card was getting horrible reception(1mbps and sometimes 5.5mpbs), and just a while ago i cut it open and find that the big heavy wire that was soldered to it broke off. I soldered a wire to it and soldered the end of that wire to a big piece of copper sheeting and now I get much better (but not perfect) connection, 18mbps. What are tips on making your own wifi antennas?

 

[microtexan]

Do a google search, there is a plethora of DIY antenna ideas out there. Some are very easy some not so.

 

[Krumlink]

Yeah, Im going to get some cable and a connector and make a decent one, and I have plenty of copper sheets (for flex circuits).

 

[Krumlink]

Heh, I took off the big piece of copper sheet and stripped the wire, now I get full 54mbps speed. I guess the piece of copper was not good for the signal.

 

[gabeNC]

If you want to increase your range these parabolic reflectors work really well.

www.freeantennas.com


I was trying to give my neighbor internet access off of my wifi router and put one of those old linksys bridge wps11's in his window, slapped a couple of reflectors on both sides and it nearly worked. During the winter it was working okay, dropped probably 10% of the packets but when the leaves came out in the spring packet loss went to 75%. The distance was over 400 meters... I gave it a valiant effort. I finally broke down and told him to get cheap high speed.

 

[theinfamousbob]

If you're looking for a directional one Cantenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia should help you out a lot.

 

[rmn_tech]

Try these ideas. I have successfully used the double Biquad for 2.4GHz CCTV with a range of over 1 mile (clear line of sight) from my workshop to home. When connected to a wireless card I have noted a plethora of AP's many not even encrypted.

Biquad Antenna Construction

https://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/double.cg

 

[Mikebits]

I got the impression that Krum solved his problem.

 

[rmn_tech]

I just thought that other people might be interested in increasing their range.

 

[Krumlink]

Yeah I solved my problem with a single piece of wire. Now I get as good of reception as it was with the original antenna

I think it is cool to see other ideas posted. No harm done

 

[Krumlink]

Amusing picture time!
117: Workstation Computer
119: my entire workstation/xbox360 gaming setup. Computer hooked up to TV in vga. Computer is a duron 700mhz 368mb ram with 40gb hdd.
120: close up fuzzy picture of power and reset button. Power LED doesnt work x.x
121: mangled WIFI antenna
122: wifi card w/antenna
123: new wifi antenna (works pretty much the same, looks better)

 

[HiTech]

A discarded Dish TV dish or similar can be easily transformed for WiFi yielding gain in the 20db numbers with reception easily beyond a mile. There are reports of reception up to several miles away!