Wednesday 22 August 2007

How To: Boost Your Wifi Signal (For Free)

Many people have trouble with their wireless signal, particularly if their computer is far from their router, or if they live in a nuclear fallout shelter. You can buy a wifi booster for a hefty chunk of change, or you can do it for free with a parabolic reflector that outperform the commercial boosters. I've tried this at home, and it actually works very well. You can expect about 9 to 12 decibels of boost.



Click to download the antenna plans.

It took me a total of about 15 minutes from start to finish. Because I do not have a printer at home, I just traced the image from my screen on to a regular sheet of paper (lightly, with a pencil). Then I cut that out, and traced the paper cutout onto some cardboard, cut out the cardboard, glued the foil to the card, and it was all done. The cardboard used to make the antenna is actually from an old beer box.

Also keep in mind that if your wireless receiver is external to your computer, you can put another parabolic reflector on that to increase its sensitivity. Using this method you can easily double or triple your signal.

There is an urban legend that during the space race both the Americans and the Russians sought to overcome the difficult of writing with a pen in a zero-gravity environment. NASA spent millions of dollars to develop a pressurized pen that could write without gravity, and even in a vacuum. The Russians brought a pencil. This story is not true, but the point is valid. Simple, low-tech solutions are not only cheaper and easier than the snazzy, expensive solution, but they often work better too.

2 comments:

IFA said...

i am gonna try this on my network hope that work for me also


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Doris M. Bennett said...

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