January 2004
Intermediate to advanced
348 pages
13h 33m
English
Content preview from Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks
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45
3
3. How to Hack
802.11b Antennas
Cost
Time
Difficulty
$10–20
a few hours
easy
I’ve been using a wireless Ethernet card in my laptop for several years. The
change from wired networking to wireless was an amazing shift. I was no
longer tethered to a thick cable. I could wander around my office or my
home and connect to the Web. However, in many situations I found that
the range of the built-in antenna in the PC card was limited, and I desired
additional range.
In this hack, I will show you how to build two different range-extending
antennas for your wireless LAN card. The first design is made from a used
soup or coffee can. It is inexpensive and easy to implement, and will send
and receive a signal in one direction that’s up to 16 times more powerful
than the built-in antenna on your wireless card. The second design uses a
discarded Primestar satellite TV dish antenna. It is highly directional and
can theoretically send and receive data to another dish up to 10 kilometers
away under ideal conditions.
Credits
All photographs (except Figure 3-4) copyright
© 2003 Rob Frohne.
What You Need
• 802.11b network card
• Computer (Windows, Linux, Mac)
• A Primestar dish
• Soldering iron
• N-style RF connector
• A chassis-mount N connector
• Low-loss coaxial cable (optional)
• A “pigtail” connector
• Other items listed in
Exhibits A and B
ch03_antennas.indd 45
1/21/2002 12:25:40 PM ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.