Turn your steamer into a WiFi antenna

Now that cantennas are, um, illegal in some parts, you're probably looking for a new method to boost power to your WiFi adapter on a budget. Well, start by getting mom's vegetable steamer, the one that always reminded you (us) of a spacecraft as a kid. Then, jam your USB adapter up in there (don't worry, it ain't too hard). Ah, what a wonderful combination, dear friends. Witness as Instructables shows you how to fully transform a lonely implement of better nutrition into a device you're slightly more likely to get some use out of. And when you're done you can use some of that money you saved on a real high-gain antenna to take yourself out for some fast food. Go ahead, y'earned it.

[Via MAKE: Blog]

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 7:21AM]

Thats pretty fun. Is there anyway to boost the broadcasting abilities of a router?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 7:21AM]

An April fool in July?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 8:19AM]

Does it get wok-fi?

[AR Posted Jul 25th 2006 8:32AM]

essh. what's next, a steel trashcan lid?

[soccerdude21490 Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:00AM]

how far can these things go? Like a few hundred feet? OR like a couple miles?

CAuse it would be nice for my friend with dial up a few miles down the road. I could hook this thing up and he could make one and use it

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:13AM]

Download net stumbler to see the antenna gain. If you have line of site between the two antennas, I don't see why you couldn't get close to a mile of range with this setup.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:19AM]

Many more creative antenna techniques have been covered here: http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/
including the WokFi method (parabolic chinese cookware). The lastest method tried is a foil covered bendy ruler, believe it or not.

[SugarDaddy Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:45AM]

>Thats pretty fun. Is there anyway to boost the
>broadcasting abilities of a router?

Aluminum foil. Yes it works.

[SugarDaddy Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:48AM]

>how far can these things go? Like a few hundred feet? OR
>like a couple miles?

No, it's more like that crappy signal you get from indoors to outdoors is now a good signal. It boosts it in the tens of feet. There's other technology out there that will focus the WiFi signal (much like a laser) so that you can actually get hundreds of yards. Setting them up in tandem, you can make it go miles, yes. Sorry I don't have a link for you, but this was in PopSci.

[OddManOut Posted Jul 25th 2006 9:49AM]

"CAuse it would be nice for my friend with dial up a few miles down the road. I could hook this thing up and he could make one and use it"

Two uni-directional antennas on your respective roofs is probably the only way you'll be able to hook your friend up. And that's assuming you have a clear line of sight. Perhaps something like this...

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2414d.php

Base price of $27. Not bad, but there will be a little more to it than that....

[cycomachead Posted Jul 25th 2006 10:48AM]

cool
but maybe I am weird and wrong, but it looks like the signal would get a bettwer boost by putt the USB thing on the inside of the steamer

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 10:54AM]

It is on the inside.

[NateJack Posted Jul 25th 2006 11:26AM]

I think i might try this later
even though i already can get my neighbours wireless from 450 feet away using the intel card in my dell XD

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 12:05PM]

I'm going to hook one of these up to my iPod and go mow the lawn.

[jollyllama Posted Jul 25th 2006 12:39PM]

WiFi boosting is soooo 2004.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 2:00PM]

Cool. Although usb wifi adapters suck. They are much lower power than pc cards and access points which pump out 100 milliwatts +. Your better off with an external antenna and one of the above. 1 mile with my http://www.wifiantenna.com

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 3:35PM]

Yes this does work. In the first day using it I noticed a huge increase in wifi reception. I was able to connect to my friends house (with his permission of course) who lives .2 miles (1000+ feet) down the road through houses, trees, cars and what ever else was in the way just by pointing the dish out my window at his house. Granted the signal wasn’t the greatest, but still enough to connect and share files / surf the net. I plan on making another one with a better dish and working the math to get the highest gain. Believe me, I didn’t just make this so it looked like a satellite dish, I made it to make a better receiver. I'm pretty sure I succeeded in just that. A Pringles Cantenna works pretty well, but they are very unidirectional. You have to have them aligned pretty much dead on in order to get any reliable signal. Make one and try it out for yourself.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 4:13PM]

Rather old if i recall, i remember finding this site on a rainy day at least 5 months ago.

But it is useful and i might deide to try it out with a friend in the next compound.

By the way a great thing and i'm using with pleasure is loading linux on the wrtg54 linksys routers. The software is amazing so is the range increase.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2006 10:51PM]

This is amusing, but the second you use a real directional antenna, you'll forget about these little toys.