"The pictures on my wall are all Wonky!"

 

im telling you...with a cantenna you can pick up super weak signals from a mile away.

basically its a pringles can made into a direction antenna, hense the name cantenna. they work really well and are very cheap to build.

basic cantenna

 

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

the build site.

 

Interesting given we have the same router, We get ours clear down to the end of the block, and the next block over.... methinks maybe its the card in your 'puter

Brent arent cantennas illegal?

 

And you call ME a redneck? Thats worse than a pallet porch.

 

Brent, you've got to be $&*%'n me . . . is that for real???

Kevin, why are they illegal?

Tret . . . can you mount one on a pallet??

 

I retract that statement, I believe they have been banned on most college campus' for obvious reasons, but arent technically illegal......

 

So if I understand right you couldn't use one of those with a laptop that has a built in wireless setup, only a home PC with the card that you add?

Once you pop . . . you can't stop!

 

you use a cantenna with a laptop, as long have an ethernet card as well as a wireless card...which most so...and yes cantanna is a very powerfull antenna and no its not illegal and it hasn't been banned from many campuses...as long as you are a registered student you can use wireless from wherever you want if you get signal..those conections are pretty secure so you dont have to worry much about random people getting onto the connection at a campus.. at U of I my buddy had one that worked on the UI Network all the way accross town.

 

The world record is something like 130 miles using off the shelf stuff. You're really limited by the FFC more to what power you can have, than what antenna you use - up to a certain point.

Even a lot of the wireless internet companies just have a wireless pci card hooked up at the radio site, feeding a 1 watt amp and a good antenna. Of course there's some major switching and T-1 lines involved...

I've never had the security features hooked up on mine. I've seen people park in front of the house for a while - I've never unhooked the router to mess with them. I look at it like someone wanting to borrow water from the hose. I guess if someone really wanted to crack my system.....

 

I would think that college campuses would encourage students to use other networks. The fewer people trying to share music and host FTP servers on the campus network, the better (from an IT standpoint)

I have my security on, but just a WPA password (and not a very strong one at that). I only have it on because there is at least one, and sometimes 2 or 3 signals I see from here and not everyone knows how to stay on their own network. I don't really mind people using my connection occasionally, but I worry about people parking on my network and using file sharing apps and taking up all of my bandwidth.

 

I have the computers networked now, and it works great. I have another question now.

How do I hook up my printer so each computer can print with it? I can do that with my 4 port router, correct?

 

It depends more on your printer than anything, some can do it wirelessly, some via ethernet cable, some arent capable, does your printer have an ethernet port on it?

Im not familiar with how to set up printer sharing with Microsoft Winblows

 

On the computer with the printer connected to it, right-click your printer and select "Sharing" from the menu. Set the radio button to "Share my printer" (set other options in that dialog box if you like.)

On the other computers, add a printer just as you would any printer, but rather than Local printer, choose to browse for network printers. You'll see the computer that is attached to the printer; double-click it and you'll see the printer. Add that printer, your computer will suck the drivers off the other computer (assuming you're both running the same version of Windows), and you're done.

The other option is to get a stand-alone print server for that printer and plug it in to the network (don't have to keep that first computer turned on all the time that way), or get a printer that has network support. Brother makes some good network-capable personal printers.

 

I've got the same problem here at the house, the garage is quite a reach for my wireless card.

I've been checking out the internet info on the cantenna and something clicked - wow, I've been working with this stuff for years, just on a commercial level.

One problem with the cantenna is it really has too high a gain for your house. The reported 17 dB is too sharp for this application plus, whose wife or gf is going to let you duct tape a pringles can to the wall? Please don't look into your cantenna - your eyes resonate at about 1.2GHz and that's close enough for concern. 2.4GHz wavelength is just a little over 4" , so for some of you guys, you know who you are, keep it out of you crotch. A cantenna is just a basic feed horn and if you were to point that thing into a dish, 12 to 15 mile range at T-1 bandwidth happens all the time... That's really too much gain and too narrow a beam for my house. I want something has about 3dB gain with a beam width of about 180 degrees, so I can stick it on one side of the house, hooked up to the router - and reach my laptop without slamming 5 wireless hubs down the street.

I dug out some design specs for flat panel antennas, (kind of like what you see on the cell towers), and I think I can build a single element gain 2.4 GHz antenna for a router, for pennies using common stuff. Dimensions are really critical, so for spacers I'm looking at common plexiglass you can get at Lowes. The brand they sell is Plastilite. I emailed their Engineer and he responded this morning with the dielectric figures. If this pencils out, I should be able to make this thing the size of a credit card and about 1/8" thick, (I'm going to hide it behind a picture and the wife will never know..) When I get the prototype hammered out I'll post the info here for anyone that wants to build one.