Easy wardriving wireless antenna booster- wifi - wlan

In this instructable i'll show you how to build a very easy wireless antenna for practically no money. I made it by recycling some stuff that we were otherwise just throw away. So it's kind of green too! =)

The idea is to catch the wifi waves that pass near your laptop without reaching it, and make them bounce into your wireless antenna.
I use it standing behind my laptop when i'm.. reading my mail..
..to make it.. load faster..
**hmm...**
..yeah..

It actually nearly doubled the signal strength i got from a certain access point.

It's really easy you'll see, so get into it right now!

Step 1 Gathering materials

What you're gonna need is:
-Aluminium paper
-A big cardboard sheet
-some light pipe
-Duct tape
-Some other cheaper adhesive tape
-some screws
-a wood bit
-some (pretty soft) metal parts you can cut and bend
-tools: screwdriver, saw

Comments

[AymanElsayed]

Thanks Will Try This but what about measurements

[arian1101360]

i have a waimax network for a cofenet but my connection become disable frequently and the clients become angri ,what can i do?

[arian1101360]

very good mersi

[McGyver2]

I have two questions: how do I connect it to my laptop and do you have video footage that it prooves works?

[wintergoat]

You DONT connect it. It simply reflects the waves to your computer.

[wee_man]

Im not completly sure but in this sort of dish all the radio waves collect at a curtain point the focus have a look at thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_reflector
Im gonna try it to improve the wireless signal coming to my sleepout.

[Pixels303]

Aluminum foil will work no worse than any other conductive material.
Focus is important. Simply divide the width by 4 and you have your focus - Or use the 45 degree reflection points for the focus. You will also find that orienting your antenna 90 degrees with respect to your diagram will also boost your signal quality by a significant amount.
http://www.ctforumgroup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19202&sid=27f6b605012f2cb9b3f94733115c0345

[faustologa]

You have to experiment yourself which angle gives you the best signal boost!
Tips:
-If you spread the sides the focus point moves away from the reflector
-if you close them to focus point moves in towards the reflector
Experiment! And let me know what you got! =)

[sysadmn]

Or you can use excel to graph a parabola, print it, and use that as a template. Don't forget to mark the focus point on the template so you'll know where the antenna should go.

[Pixels303]

draw your own graph. Draw lines from the bottom center to the outer marks, and mark dots one left and one intersect up, two left and two intersects up, and so on. Simply divide the width of the paper by four and mark that measurement above center for the focus. That simple, no calculator or computer required.

[Pixels303]

width from Center to edge I mean

[throbscottle]

Cool project - better than fiddling with trying to connect a pigtail inside your laptop!

[grandavi]

Does anyone think using a sheet of Aluminum (not foil) will work at all? I am trying to get my wifi from my place to my brother, about 40 yards. I can use a laptop at his place and it can find wireless, but when I try his pc with a wireless card and no long antenna to it, it can not find a connection. Why would a laptop work and not the pc, both have wireless cards.?

[BadMonkey63]

All of the people above are right about a focus point for the reflector. There are allot of online calculators to make this calculation and get the best reception for your project. Look at my posting for the pop bottle reflector and read down in the comments area... A nice guy from south america had sent me a page of calculators and it did make a difference in the percentage of gain in the RF signal. Otherwise great job! :)

[rhackenb]

Do you wire this to your computer? If not, how do you use it?

[threecheersfornick]

Agreed. How do I connect this to my laptop?

[faustologa]

(this is also a reply to rhackenb)

Guys the idea is to focus all the waves in a focus point where you're supposed to have either your laptop or your real antenna. If you spread the sides the focus point moves away from the reflector and you can have your antenna/laptop further away from the reflector. It all depends on how much space you got.
I hope it works for you! Let me know what happened =)