Guide: Use Beer To Boost Your Wi-Fi Router!
How to amplify your router's radio signal by using a parabolic antenna.
The main problem with home Wi-Fi setups is the fact that houses have walls. These evil contraptions of brick and mortar attenuate radio signals to a great degree. With enough of them between your router and portable device, the internet connectivity is reduced to crawling about at speeds reminiscent of the student \ shell accounts of yore.
Yes, you can always upgrade to powerful 802.11n routers, which are generally outfitted with stronger radios, but where's the fun in that? Especially when you can use beer to boost the signal strength of your g-spec router instead? You heard that right - this DIY (Do-It-Yourself) guide will show you how to increase your router's coverage with nothing but two cans of the manly elixir, and maybe some chakna for good measure.
Theory Of Operation
The idea is to concentrate the radio waves for a stronger signal by employing a parabolic reflector. This increases Wi-Fi signal gain, thereby increasing its range and giving it enough grunt to pass through walls. It's the same principle used in big-*** military radars watching over the horizon for incoming aircraft and nuclear warheads. To give you an example of how effective this is, here's a
graph obtained from a Wi-Fi monitoring utility that shows a healthy 15% increase in signal strength as soon as I deployed the parabolic booster on my router..
What You Need
• Two beer cans (soft drink cans will work too, but they don't taste as good).
• Heavy-duty scissors.
• A box cutter, commonly referred to as just a cutter - the kind you cut paper with.
• A roll of cellophane or preferably, double-sided tape.
• 6 packaging wires (the wires used to tie up cables in retail packages). Alternatively, use any thin metal wire of similar length.
• A sidekick, to help you with the final step.
• First-aid kid (just in case).
Step 1
Drink beer.
Step 2
Cut off the rims at both ends of each can. Ignore the overkill USMC KA-BAR combat knife; you can use something saner, such as a box cutter.
Step 3
Use scissors to cut the beer cans along their lengths.
Step 4
Cut off thin strips from the ends to get rid of sharp edges. Don't throw the strips away; we'll have use for them later.
This is how it should appear at the end.
Step 5
Use any reasonably thick rod to flatten the sheets. This is achieved by rolling them against their natural curvature.
Step 6
Join the two sheets together with cellophane tape, with the shiny sides facing away from each other. Unless, of course, you've signed a sponsorship deal with Vijay Mallya.
This is how the end result should appear.
Step 7
Strip the insulating material off the packaging twine to get at the metal wire inside.
Step 8
Wind the leftover aluminium strips around a pen to create two rings. Hold them in place with cellophane tape.
Step 9
Loop three packaging wires through each ring. Twist them around to lock them in place.
Step 10
Use a thumb tack, divider, nail gun, Chuck Norris' eyelash, or any other pointed object to punch six holes through the sheets. Each hole near the corners (marked in black) should be 3 cm away from the short edge and 5 cm away from the long edge of the sheet. Punch two more holes, whose locations have been marked red in the figure. Note that these holes will lie exactly inbetween the corner holes.
Step 11
Push each end of the wire through the holes made in the sheet.
Step 12
Bend the sheet to form a parabolic shape and twist the wire ends at the back to retain the position, as shown in the second figure. Don't twist and lock the wires running through the middle holes just yet.
Step 13
Install the parabolic booster by passing the router antenna through the aluminium rings.
Step 14
Download, install, and run any free \ shareware Wi-Fi monitoring tool, such as this one.
Step 15
Get a friend \ relative to assist you. While he monitors the signal strength in the utility, you need to adjust the length of the unsecured middle wire on each ring. This has to be done because maximum signal strength is achieved when the Wi-Fi antenna is at the correct distance from the parabolic aluminium sheet. Once your sidekick alerts you about the best signal strength as reported in the utility, twist the loose end of the wires to lock the position. The first image shows how to adjust the position, while the second illustrates how to lock it in place.
Note that the parabolic antenna has been dismounted from the router in order to illustrate the above point better. In actual practice, the adjustments and locking should be completed while the parabolic antenna is mounted on the router.
Congratulations, you have made your own parabolic Wi-Fi signal booster! Now you can enjoy better signal reception even in the remotest corners of your house. Except if you happen to live in a saas-bahu type haveli.
Courtesy : Techtree
Thanks to Nachiket 'therapist' Mhatre
Chalo Bhai Log.....Shuru Ho Jao !