Tasty! “The Apple Airport Express is a wonderful piece of hardware. The only drawback I have exprerienced with this device is its relatively low signal sensitivity. Having noticed that, I started looking for a way to connect an external antenna to extend the range of the Airport Express…This idea is to put the Airport Express in the middle of the parabolic kitchenware. In other words to make a kind of a passive wifi antenna enhancer. Et voila!” [via] Link.
6 thoughts on “Parabolic Kitchenware as Wi-Fi Extender”
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There are other, better pictures in Make #1 of where the two antennas are in an Airport Express. Basically, if you plug it into a wall socket, the two antennas are on top and on the front face, both near the top-front corner.
What this hack has done is effectively reduce the amount of signal going down into the ground, and slightly changed the shape of the coverage pattern to go up like a wide cone.
This is not a bad idea if the antenna is in the center of the ground floor of a building, and you want the signal to go further upstairs.
You certainly cannot beat the “cheap” and “easy” factors, but a little more cleverness will probably give better results in other situations.
There are other, better pictures in Make #1 of where the two antennas are in an Airport Express. Basically, if you plug it into a wall socket, the two antennas are on top and on the front face, both near the top-front corner.
What this hack has done is effectively reduce the amount of signal going down into the ground, and slightly changed the shape of the coverage pattern to go up like a wide cone.
This is not a bad idea if the antenna is in the center of the ground floor of a building, and you want the signal to go further upstairs.
You certainly cannot beat the “cheap” and “easy” factors, but a little more cleverness will probably give better results in other situations.
There was a article using a D-Link knock off USB 802.11g with a parabolic dish from New Zealand across Wellington harbour into a AP for $5.
Anyway to cut a long story short a wok strainer was the ideal dish. The USB internal dongle antenna was located by inspection as was the parabolic refection point using aluminum foil and the sun and the USB antenna was placed at that point in the strainer. 15DB directional gain was achieved as opposed to 21DB max predicted. Payback was achieved by using the unit on the end of a Digital USB cable as opposed to a expensive SNA cable or the ilk.
There is a full story http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz with Full pictures.
Today a Broadcom or Prism 3 chipset would be far more sensitivite. But we are talking about a skimmer with a nice bamboo mounting handle.
Cheers John