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Who has built a upgraded Antenna For a Wifi card

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Jul 26, 2004
I looking for a nice easy build not somthing really fancy . I have lots of coper and wire @ my disposal I just have never made one before . Ne help would be great .
 
Nice ! looks very clean . How much db gain did you get from it ? On sunday I got a free Sat dish So im planing on trying a Cantenna on the sat dish . I will post pics if I get it working .
 
not really sure what gain i got out of it. it did improve allot though. I got a sat dish myself i have just not got around to putting it together yet. The mobil mark is easy to build probley took and hour. hardest part was getting the magnet.
 
This little beauty is the one I want to build.
http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/
And it's made to fit the LNB holder on my old Primestar dish I salvaged too, but works for several Kilometers without one though.

It's invented by Trevor Marshall, and at the bottom of his page of the biquad antenna (trevormarshall.com), there's dimensional changes to make it work with a cell phone too....can you say EVDO? I do plan on making one for my Nextel service this spring.

I have built the Comtelco antenna. Works great. Directional somewhat, but the coverage area is a 60° cone shape.
http://www.lincomatic.com/wireless/comtelco/

Easy to build using copper flashing like I did.
Too bad I gave it to my brother when I stopped playing with wireless, so I have no pics.
 
Diggrr said:
This little beauty is the one I want to build.
http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/
And it's made to fit the LNB holder on my old Primestar dish I salvaged too, but works for several Kilometers without one though.

It's invented by Trevor Marshall, and at the bottom of his page of the biquad antenna (trevormarshall.com), there's dimensional changes to make it work with a cell phone too....can you say EVDO? I do plan on making one for my Nextel service this spring.

I have built the Comtelco antenna. Works great. Directional somewhat, but the coverage area is a 60° cone shape.
http://www.lincomatic.com/wireless/comtelco/

Easy to build using copper flashing like I did.
Too bad I gave it to my brother when I stopped playing with wireless, so I have no pics.

hey for that biquad antenna could i just use low loss coax cable like this

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/1646339?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
 
Since your'e gonna be doing your own ends, I'd just buy a patch cable of RG-58 instead.
RG-59 is the common and cheap 75 ohm video cable used everywhere.
RG-58 is a 50 ohm cable and will do just fine for wireless in shorter segments.

Here's one cheap.
http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=8011+CB

If I had to run from the computer across the house and up the tower to my antenna, then I would most certainly use the LM-400 super duper cable (at a super duper price).
But for short bits RG-58 is no problem. Heck, look at the skinny little wimpy cables they use for laptop antenna's...that aught to make anyone feel more comfortable about the coax I linked.

Oh, and using 3/8" copper bendable refridgerator tubing for the center post will allow it to crimp around the smaller coax without issue, like they show on that page using the humongous LM-400 cable with 1/2" pipe.
You can just buy a foot or two from the local hardware.
Though if using it mounted on a dish, you'd have to adapt the tube size behind the ground plane plate to fit the mount securely. :thup:
 
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Diggrr said:
Since your'e gonna be doing your own ends, I'd just buy a patch cable of RG-58 instead.
RG-59 is the common and cheap video cable used everywhere.
RG-58 is a 50 ohm cable and will do just fine for wireless in shorter segments.

Here's one cheap.
http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=8011+CB

If I had to run from the computer across the house and up the tower to my antenna, then I would most certainly use the LM-400 super duper cable (at a super duper price).
But for short bits RG-58 is no problem. Heck, look at the skinny little wimpy cables they use for laptop antenna's...that aught to make you feel more comfortable about the coax I linked.

Oh, and using 3/8" copper bendable refridgerator tubing for the center post will allow it to crimp around the smaller coax without issue, like they show on that page using the humongous LM-400 cable w/ 1/2" pipe. ;)


sweet cus i was gonna say i saw at frys the other day, a WIFI antenna extender and the lil wire used was skimpy... and also the antenna that came with my P5W dh mobo has the same type of wire.

BTW what is the difference between RG58 RG6?

and what is the OHM rating for.... OHMS are usually bad ...
 
What type of connectors are Asus using for their On-Board WiFi? It looks like a micro "F" connector, possibly metric (definately NOT a BNC, it is about 1/5 the size of a BNC)? I'd like to make an extension cable for my P5B-D WiFi antenna... And maybe make a DIY antenna soon - but I will need the connector regardless (a male and a female for the extension)...

Thanks :cool:
 
Randyman... said:
What type of connectors are Asus using for their On-Board WiFi? It looks like a micro "F" connector, possibly metric (definately NOT a BNC, it is about 1/5 the size of a BNC)? I'd like to make an extension cable for my P5B-D WiFi antenna... And maybe make a DIY antenna soon - but I will need the connector regardless (a male and a female for the extension)...

Thanks :cool:


ya its a tiny lil f style looking connector....
 
http://wireless.gumph.org/content/3/7/011-cable-connectors.html
Is it one of these?

RG-6 is also a 75 ohm coax cable like RG-59, but it's got a thicker plastic/silicone shield between the internal and outer conductors so it looses less signal between the gozinta and the gozouta.
From brands I've seen, it tends to have a heavier gage center wire also, but it's still a 75 ohms per meter cable.

The point wasn't to actually use the BNC connector, but to use the cheap coax between them. Since RG-58 is commonly used as an antenna wire for CB's, a finished patch cable will most likely have BNC ends. It's also the easiest way to avoid buying a 500ft roll.
You'd still need to supply a mating end for your equipment no matter what cable you bought, unless you bought one of the pro-made cables ($$$).

Look into RG-213 (which is most likely better than RG-58 for the 2.4 freq.) and likely cheaper than LMR-400.
 
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Yea dont you want to use cables with 50 omhs or less ?
I have a Starchoice Dish That I plan On putting on the top of the house . Im also looking around for some type of device that is used for turning antennas nice On the sat dish even with a 20bd gain it is going to be very directonal .
I was talking to my day cause I rember him using one on his Ham radio gear . Gonna check out the next sawp meet in my area .
 
Yes, 50 ohms is what you want for antennas.
Yes it's directional, but not like a laser-beam or anything. There's plenty of wiggle room to pick up a signal and tune it to the highest level.
That makes it perfect for a long distance connection though. Instead of wasting it's energy on a 360° broadcast, that energy is focused on the target and more of it strikes the target (and is recieved from the target).

When using a dish, they have their handy dandy adjustments so it's moveable in small increments cause they're trying to hit an antenna 23,000 miles away...perfect for what you need.

Make sure to ground the dish to a ground rod.
Lightening is cool, house fires are not.
 
Diggrr said:
gozinta and the gozouta.

Whoa there, almost lost me with the scientifical stuff :p j/k

One thing you should always keep in mind when making your own antenna for wireless, is keep it short... 3-5 inches is all your going to need for an antenna for this frequency. A good rule of thumb is to try and get as close as you can to the height of the standing wave. Higher the frequency, the shorter the antenna.


I modded an old D-Link DWL-650+ PCMCIA card a while back to do the wardriving/war walking thing a while back. It's a card with the old (and awesome!) prism II chipset... all you had to do was change the location of a tiny resister, and solder on a pig-tail.

Most people used SMA connectors ( only widely available through digikey at the time ) however, I used RG-58 for the whole thing, and used a BNC connector on the end to give my the flexibility of changing antennas... i just used a scanner rubber ducky on the end.

It worked frighteningly well, i went from barely getting coverage in my driveway to being able to hit my wireless network in my house from ~ 1000 ft down the street.



~ Gos
 
so for the biquad antenna (the run will be no longer than 2 - 3 ft) what grade of coax should i use?

RG-58 RG-59 or RG-6?

and what type of connector is used on the wrt54 series stock antennas?
 
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Thanks, Diggrr. I think Asus is using the RP-SMA or the RP-TNC for their Wi-Fi. It is hard to tell from that pic - but that will get me in the right direction :thup:
 
nd4spdbh2 said:
so for the biquad antenna (the run will be no longer than 2 - 3 ft) what grade of coax should i use?

RG-58 RG-59 or RG-6?

and what type of connector is used on the wrt54 series stock antennas?


RG-58 would be best if its short, also the connectors are reverse TNC connectors that are on the WRT54G series available at digikey for not that much... there is also a WRT54GC model out now thats tiny/portable that has an internal antenna AND a single SMA connector on the outside.


~ Gos
 
Wow you guys are all hardcore.

I used a reflector to get more range to my router :( (went from 35-40% signal strength= constant dropping to 60-70% signal strength=never dropping) ALii used was a 6" reflective ruler that I taped and adjusted behind the antennae. About half wavelength was strongest IIRC)
 
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