Increase your WiFi Connection by Yourself
17 Comments By Tal Siach on October 16th, 2007 in DIY (Do It Yourself)Has this ever happened to you? While surfing the net on your laptop, the wireless connection icon suddenly jumps up and warns you that your Internet connection is low or perhaps you have just been disconnected.
The immediate response for the above is to begin moving your laptop from side to side praying for the connection to increase or return. Just like looking at a compass and trying to determine the right direction, we end up walking around searching for a better WiFi reception.
Sometimes there are actual “dead areas” because of the location of your computer and router, thus the reception is low at certain points, not allowing you to surf properly.
There are many interesting and innovative solutions to solve this annoying problem. Some are in the form of accessories such as antenna extenders or external WiFi cards that attempt to extend your reception. Although many times these work well, they are costly and perhaps not as fun as doing it yourself.
The First option is for the light DIY users. With aluminum foil, glue, good will and 25 cents to spare, you can easily create the Windsurfer by yourself. The neat video by DL.TV can be seen below, and if you wish to use the template seen in the video, you can find it (here).
The second DIY option is an antenna hack where you take your regular antenna and turn it into a $30 range extender for the mere cost of approximately 5 cents! The simple step by step guide includes pictures and may be found at Instructables.
I hope these tips help you increase your Internet reception and surf quicker.I am certain there are many other ways to extend your WiFi reception. Please feel free to share with us any of your personal tips and projects that you’ve tried.
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Related Tags: increase wifi range, wifi adapter, wifi antenna, wifi connection, wifi range, wifi signal
October 18th, 2007 at 7:00 am
What handy information! I laughed when I read the beginning about moving the laptop around to try to magically get the signal back! Thanks for the information.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Hey Neece!, it’s great seeing you again.
. I am glad you find this information useful.
You don’t know how many times this actually happened to me
Thanks for your comment.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 am
A useful trick just like the other posts on the site. I’m lookin’ forward for the future posts. Thanks for the information…
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:29 am
Hey Kemal! Thanks for the warm feedback
I am happy you found the information useful. Hope to see you soon.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Is this a wind up? or does it really work?
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:06 am
I have always been tempted to build one of these but I was always worried how it would affect the signal strength in the other rooms of my house but this one looks nice because it can be removed if it doesn’t work out.
November 4th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Hi Simon and Chris, thanks for visiting.
@Simon: It’s not a wind up, and in a lot of cases it can help increase your WiFi connection.
@Chris: This method is simple, inexpensive and convenient since it can be removed if doesn’t work out.
I hope it will improve the WiFi signal in your house. Please let us know how it went.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:26 am
[...] Increase your WiFi Connection by Yourself | Walyou Blog (tags: wifi tutorial diy tips) [...]
November 4th, 2007 at 2:54 am
I put one together and aimed it out into my living room – the signal on my laptop actually dropped from 3 bars to 2!
So much for the magical signal booster…
November 4th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Hi Chejrw, thanks for your feedback.
This trick worked for me as well as some others. I am not sure why it actually reduced your reception. It seems that in your case, the regular way simply works best.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
note tough that this will probably also increase the your signal towards your neighbours who would probably take advantage of your monthly $30 high speed wireless internet subscription =\
January 11th, 2008 at 4:27 am
[...] If your on a budget however, you can try making your own homemade wi-fi booster by using the template provided by freeantennas.com for the Ez-12 Parabolic Reflector. I first noticed this info on Walyou.com [...]
September 25th, 2008 at 10:05 am
This actually worked for me. The first time a made on it was the normal size but instead of increasing my WiFi signal it dcreased. Anyway i made a new on, like three times the size of the normal on and whatta u know, my signal increased for 15%. Pretty awsome
November 6th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Cool trick. Looking forward to reading the rest of your posts
January 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Now that is cool. I am definitely going to subscribe to this.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Its nice to see something so great cost so little for a change.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Hello, I recently made both the EZ-10 and EZ-12 antenna reflectors (go to freeantennas.com) and tested them on my WPNT 834a RangeMax wireless router which has 3 broadcasting antennas and is a MIMO router. Today I woke up to having my DC transformer blown. And I am thinking it’s because these reflectors cause the router to suck more amps. Have you heard anything like this happening before? Luckily I have an universal tranformer I am using now to write here in this blog. Also, I have found that my EZ-12, which is 1.75x’s bigger than the original template doesn’t work as well as my 3 EZ-10s I have reduced by a 1/3 to fit on each antenna. For the Ez-10s I had to trim the left and right side of the outer antennas so they don’t interfere with the transmission from the middle antenna. Please if you have any input of why my transformer may have blown if it’s possible that these reflectors cause my router to suck more amps I would like to know so I can just do with out them and get another wifi router and use it as a repeater.
~John