Microwave make a good WIFI booster?

kaltag · Apr 14, 2003

Just thought about this...WIFI is 2.4 GHZ and so is my 1000watt microwave, so...somehow connect antennas from wireless router with 500 milliwatts of power to the amplifier in microwave and voila whole country side is enveloped in my wireless network

. I simply pose this question as a thought and have no real intention of trying this becasue I'm not too fond of the idea of growing an arm from my forehead or other possibly annoying side effects caused by 1000watt amplifier in my room. has this been tried before in some way or another? I honestly see no reason why this wouldn't work in theory though.

DDR-PIII · Apr 14, 2003

hmm....thats a thought :|

spoken81 · Apr 14, 2003

can you say cooked turkey

skab · Apr 14, 2003

Ever been close to a radar staion. with that kind of broadcast power you would be screwing everybody elses wifi up.Input just before the main amplifier so you can modulate the signal, run the putput to an anntenna of some kind, why not? What you gonna set the timer to?

dagamore · Apr 14, 2003

the only problem with it is that the microwaves are all release in to the mirowave it self, and it is a large faraid cage, and very litte of your signal would get out but cool idea

nealric · Apr 14, 2003

1watt wi fi antennas cost 1000s of $

I would suspect that they would be much less expensive if they could just salvage microwave amps.

Its a cool thought tho.

kaltag · Apr 14, 2003

nealric said:
1watt wi fi antennas cost 1000s of $

I would suspect that they would be much less expensive if they could just salvage microwave amps.

Its a cool thought tho.

Exactly!!! that's why I think my idea is so awesome!!!! j/k But perhaps since noone has dismissed the idea as impossible there may be something to be gained by looking further into this? Man, we need some input from larva here.

tempest993 · Apr 15, 2003

That sounds like it could be possible with a bit of work, and you certainly have nothing to lose other than a few hours doing some research on it.

su root · Apr 16, 2003

Interesting idea. So interesting I googled for more info about it. I couldn't help but run into some of the same things over and over:

WARNING: Attempting to operate a magnetron outside its designed cavity is VERY dangerous and will not only decrease its useful life, but will also pose a serious threat to the operator of the device. Microwaves can cause cataracts and deep thermal burns. Any electronic equipment within range of the magnetron will be instantly destroyed.

I think i'll wait around for that 802.16 Standard...

kaltag · Apr 16, 2003

WARNING: Attempting to operate a magnetron outside its designed cavity is VERY dangerous and will not only decrease its useful life, but will also pose a serious threat to the operator of the device. Microwaves can cause cataracts and deep thermal burns. Any electronic equipment within range of the magnetron will be instantly destroyed.

Hmmmm since when has that stopped any of us

su root · Apr 16, 2003

kaltag said:
Hmmmm since when has that stopped any of us

Yeah, it needs to be in yellow/orange/red lettering with hazard symbols and stick men drawings.

vinyljunky · Apr 16, 2003

A microwave amplifier doesn't strictly produce a 2.4Ghz signal. In fact, it's output is more white than specific (white = uniform power across a range of frequencies, more formally known as 'uniform power spectral density')

You may think that this could be solved with a filter - but at 1kW, I would love to see a filter that could deal with that without melting or exploding. What you are left with is an amplifier that produces a high power signal, and an even higher power noise, which is of no use at all (in a communications sense)

So the signal you receive won't be 1kW - it will be significantly lower, and your noise is going to be multiples larger.

This is complete madness btw - let me know if any of you are going to do it so i can hide in my tin shed!

Diggrr · Apr 16, 2003

Sounds like a cool idea, but the FCC don't like people broadcasting at those powers.
You do know they can seize all broadcast equipment before trial, and it sucks to be you if it's your computer that's doing the broadcasting. They'll empty your house of all computer equipment, then hand you your court summons.

Not that it'll get that far really. As was said, 80211b is on a range of frequencies, and your output wouldn't be recognized as a broadcast by your reciever. If it did happen to be, your card would smoke from the power....hmmmm, anyone need revenge on Starbuck's? Hate yuppies on their laptops?

zabomb4163 · Apr 16, 2003

lol, no way that will work. not high enough quality to output those kind of frequencies accurately, otherwise the wi fi antennas wouldn't cost so much. i just dont think its possible without alot of other parts and knowhow. somthing i think all of us here lack as far as building wi fi antenna boosters. i bet we could get some help though. boosters aren't that expensive at universities.

somone here must know somone who builds these things

four4875 · Apr 17, 2003

a wifi directional antenna was stolen from the front of a building downtown.... i dodnt do it tho :-(

but anyways... one way to boost range is to get/make a beam antenna, sometimes referred to as a YAGI . but with this, you have to be pointing it directly at the antenna you're communicating with.

JigPu · Apr 17, 2003

Or go make a Quad antenna... Or parabolic dish... *me goes off in to happy Ham Radio land thinking of antenna designs*.

If you did ever manage to get the microwave to output a nice killowatt signal at the right frequency, let me say that you wouldn't want to be ANYWHERE NEAR the antenna/magnetron. At those power levels, I would guess that pretty much anything within 10 feet would be nuked pretty good almost in no time.

Wonder how I could hook my computer up to a GHz kilowatt ham radio.... Then I could legaly do the network, and have the killowatt power along with a nice pure signal...

JigPu

mbentley · Apr 17, 2003

weren't microwaves in the cooking sense first found when someone's chocolate bar melted in their pocket while doing some experiment with microwaves?

vinyljunky · Apr 17, 2003

Yes that's right, I did a quick search and found a nice short article about it:

http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/microwave.asp

Microwave make a good WIFI booster?

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