You are probably wondering what in the hell the contraption pictured above is. It is an antenna I built out of a Pringles Potato Chip can and attach to my Apple Airport to increase my singal strenth.
Why did I do this? Well first off, desktop is far away from my Airport and my single was pretty spotty. There were a lot of time I was unable to get onto the net and that was truly frustrating. The other reason why I built this was because I thought it was cool and I had three weeks off from school with nothing to do. Yes I am a geek, deal with it...
Anyway the antenna is pretty easy to make, you just need to get a few parts from an electronics supply store (like Radio Shack, but better) and some copper wire. I got the plans from an issue of Mac Addict, and I plan on writing in to them to tell how my experiment went.
There are a few issues with doing the antenna with a Mac and the article didn't cover them. There are also different types of antennas you can build, but I don't know what the difference is. All these things stem from a realm of science called "Wave Theory" which sounds cool but I could not care less about it. You can look up all sorts of info on this "cantenna" on google. The hardest part was soldering the copper wire inside the can. I have never soldered before and I am not very good at it.
Anyway, the results of this experiment are that my wireless internet connection is much more consistent since I set this thing up than it was before. My signal is better but not perfect, I will continue to try to find news ways of increasing my range. All in all it was fun.
The Antenna is mounted on a lazer level that I found in Target that had a tri-pod. It looks cool when you turn the beam on and point it in the direct you want your signal to go...I like to pretend it is my own little spy satellite thingy...
Now that my vacation is over and I am back at school, I will hopfully have cooler projects to show but I am pretty proud of this one. It actually worked!
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4 comments:
that is what you did for fun with three weeks off? interesting.
Please use your spell check and check your tenses for agreement. I know you're an artist but YOU are a College Grad .What would Brother Paul from LSA say!! Guess who
Mark, what is an airport? Would this qualify as a wi-fi antenna? Noneck
Ok, in response to some questions:
Whit - That is not all I did in my 3 weeks off, but it is the coolest thing.
Anonymous - I would LOVE to know who you are!
NoNeck - An airport is the white egg shaped thing in the picture. It is Apple's version of a wireless router. It does qualify as a Wi-Fi Antenna. If I got everyone in the neighborhood to make these antennas and mount them on their roofs, we could have wireless hotspots anywhere on the street, which would be pretty neat I think.
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