Monthly Archives: August 2004

WiFi Antenna

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After reading through some websites and gleaning information from different sources, I decided to experiment with some antenna design. Even though I don’t have much of an artistic/creative mindset I figured I had some tools and a roll of duct tape… so I gave it a go. The first idea I tried to implement was the Pringles “Cantenna”. It is a neat design, plus I was able to munch on some ketchup flavored Pringles for my first time here in Canada. To make a long story short… it didn’t work with my USB adapter… partially because I changed the design in the process. Probably not good, right?

So moving on I found an awesome webpage called Poor Man’s WiFi. I must say, this is a masterpiece of an idea. They simply took the dish concept, like from a satellite dish, and put a USB WiFi adapter to it using common household items. For my pseudo WokFi, common items I could fine in my area happened to be a spaghetti strainer, rather than a Chinese cooking vat scoop.

Items I used:

1 USB WiFi adapter
1 Spaghetti Strainer
1 roll of duct tape
1 ruler
->
->
->
->
$9.99 ($29.99 mail-in rebate)
Free (graciously taken from wife)
$4.99? (I can’t remember)
$0.99? (I can’t remember)
Karl holding his spaghetti strainer usb 802.11 2.4 ghz antenna The spaghetti strainer 802.11 2.4 ghz antenna
The dwl-122 connection utility that shows the signal strength without the dish attached The dwl-122 connection utility that shows the signal strength with the dish attached

While if I made a permanent structure it would have much more sturdiness to it, this one worked great. Check out the screen shot pictures. I was able to get a 24% increase in signal strength and 40% increase in link quality. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get Netstumbler to work with the DWL-122 USB adapter correctly. So actual decibel and wattage information is beyond me. I have estimated by pacing that the distance the signal is traveling is 126.4 feet (38.5 meters). The signal is originating off of a DI-624 AirPlus Extreme-G router, travels through a window, across the yard, and another window.

WiFi in the News

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The first wifi news story I would like to talk about exposes some of my own hobby radio interests… though I haven’t tried any of this sort of thing yet. A couple of teen guys at the DEFCON hacker conference were able to establish a 55.1 mile unamplified wifi connection. Obviously this is point-to-point but it raises an interesting topic. Wifi sharing. Neighbors across the country should be setting this sort of thing up. It would dramatically reduce the cost of broadband for consumers, bring neighbors together, increase the use of homebrew equipment, and provide a partial solution the “last-mile” broadband problem.

Read the article from Wired News.

In other news, today, I am pleased to announce my laptop runs Ndiswrapper and the 802.11G Intel Centrino drivers. I did it and it wasn’t hard! I am happy. I write this article while running on the wireless network here at home.

Here are some links to get those who would like to do the same started:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Intel2200
http://web.bii.a-star.edu.sg/~kuobin/linux/wireless.html
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

I also found the INSTALL file in the Ndiswrapper tar ball to be helpful.