Monday, September 12, 2011

Beer Can Wireless Signal Booster

From the interesting but useless information department...

At about the same time I was struggling with wireless connectivity at home, this story started popping up in various blogs and forums. (Sorry, I don't recall where I saw it first to give a hat tip.)

The idea is that you can use a beer can to boost your wireless signal.  There's no shortage of good beers available in cans. So I thought maybe this would be fun to try and then write a post for the Musings. Then it hit me, my wireless router has no external antenna. In fact, a search on a big box electronics store website for the best selling wireless routers reveals that very few wireless routers actually have external antennas these days.

Nevermind.

Follow the link to read more:
How to boost your WiFi signal with a beer can

2 comments:

  1. This is a novel way to make a reflector to modestly increase signal strength at the antenna (a proven concept). However, it also makes the Access Point antenna very much directional. That makes their title of "Signal Booster" quite the misnomer, and likely not the solution that most people are looking for.

    If you are looking for a directional Wi-Fi antenna, try a real hack like this "cantenna"... http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

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  2. We used a yagi back in 2000 to get a signal from the Netherlands Carillon to the Washington Monument for real time split info for a marathon. Worked really nice. I bought one for $15 and have it on a PVC pipe in my back yard to get nearly full signal to my detached studio.

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