Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[oomisilekootsi]

I would like to build a wifi antenna using a usb wifi dongle placed inside a parabolic cooking gadget. Any suggestions on what usb adapter to use? Thanks.

[gary101]

sounds like an interesting project.

Are you trying to increase signal strength between a wireless router and computers in your house?

Where I live we have some very solid brick walls that resulted in quite a few blackspots for wireless reception.

After looking at a load of designs for homemade parabolic dishes and pricing up boosters etc I bought a small anteanea (about 5 inches high, cost about £6, not sure of the Db) and drilled a hole in the bottom of an empty bean can. The antenea came on about 3ft of cable which I just connected to the wireless router and place as high as it would go, placed the bean can over the top of the antenea, now I can get a good wireless signal anywhere in the house.

Overall I got about a 25% improvement in signal strength.

I have Belkin, Asus and Linksys usb dongles working on puppy at the moment.

[oomisilekootsi]

Not really---I don't have a wireless network at home. But the place where I work is within a wifi hotspot. Maybe in the future I'd have one. Thanks.

[Braden]

At my family cottage, we and two neighbours share the satellite Internet connection of one of the neighbours. The middle neighbour lives on a slight hill between our widely spaced cottages. A quintet of parabolic antennae allow the wireless signal to travel to the top of the hill where a receiver is mounted under a plastic cover on the side of a small wellhead building, and then back down the other side to our cottage, as well as into the house of the middle neighbour.

They are made of various materials. The soup can technique works well, as do two-dimensional homemade parabolic antennae of foil-covered cardboard bent around a piece of styrofoam cut carefully into the right shape.
The distances involved here are in the range of 50-60 meters of open space and trees.