Hosted by David Calkins and Patrick Norton.
Systm is the Do It Yourself show designed for the common geek who wants to quickly and easily learn how to dive into the latest and hottest tech projects. We will help you avoid pitfalls and get your project up and running fast. Read More
Cut and past your way to better WiFi reception? It costs pennies and takes the fabrication skills of a kindergartner... then bend a 6dBi Omni and a 10dBi directional out of copper wire!
David's got a bit of trouble getting his WiFi Router signal to reach every corner of his house... one of the easiest fixes ever isn't a trip to the local computer store, but a trip to the kitchen for aluminum foil, then to the home office for a manilla folder and a glue stick.
It's the infamous Ez-12 Parabolic Reflector, hosted at FreeAntennas.com.
Here's the EZ-12 template link.
Omnidirectional Antennas = radiate signal 360 degrees...
A panel mount or surface mount female N connector and 300mm of solid core copper is the heart of the Home-brew Compact 6dBi Collinear Antenna a slick e found on MartyBugs.net.
Directional Antennas = generally concentrates your WiFi in a single direction.
We went to the Seattle Wireless most excellent collection Antenna HowTo for the SardineCanAntenna a biquad you can build with or without an N-connector, at least at the antenna end! (just search WiFi Biquad to find a host of construction ideas!) You don't have to use a sardine can, just about anything will work as a reflector, even a pressed CD... it just needs to be metallic and around 150mm in diameter.
There are quite a few more WiFi antenna designs out there... these are just some of our faves!
