Debra and I bought a new TV last week, along with a computer and other accessories required to launch us into the wide world of Internet TV. Installation went pretty much as expected, with only minor problems, and now we can get all the online offerings on our new 42″ LCD television. Including, I might add, Podly TV. I’m working on a series of blog entries that outlines what we got and how we set it up. I’ll post here when it’s ready.

The biggest problem we had was with the Internet connection. It would be exceedingly difficult to get an Ethernet cable from the router to the living room where the television is. I figured that wouldn’t be a problem, as we do have wireless and we’ve been able to use it in the living room. And although I did get a signal when I hooked everything up, it was very weak and unreliable.

To solve the problem, I first went and bought a new wireless router, since somebody convinced me that it would produce a better signal than the old Linksys WRT54G that I’ve had for years. It didn’t. And although I’d heard that it’s possible to use the Linksys as a repeater, I certainly couldn’t figure out how to do it. Besides, I don’t know how well that would work with such low signal strength, and there wasn’t a good place in between to place the repeater.

So I took it back to Fry’s and exchanged it for a Hawking HAWNU2 adapter, which I connected to the computer in the living room. The adapter is your basic USB network adapter with a directional antenna (they claim 13dBi gain) and a built-in power amplifier. That thing works like magic. My signal strength went from almost nothing (I didn’t have a measuring tool at the time) to three or four bars (out of five). The wireless signal was strong and reliable.

This morning, I learned of cheap wireless extenders. Specifically, how to build a parabolic reflector that dramatically improves wireless signals. The Linksys has two little “rubber duck” antennas that are omnidirectional. The joke in the ham radio community is that vertical antennas (which these are) radiate equally poorly in all directions. The idea of the reflector is to turn those vertical antennas into directional antennas, increasing their effectiveness by directing more of the signal to where we want it. In my case, directing the signal that would go across the street to the new houses being built so that it goes instead to my living room.

If you can download and print an image, and have even a little skill with a glue stick and a knife or scissors, you can make one of these antennas. Or even two or three, if your router has more than one antenna on it.

Directions for building the Windsurfer. That includes the template image that you need to download and print.

I downloaded the image, printed two copies, and glued them to a manila folder.

Then, using my trusty Stanley No. 199 utility knife (also makes a great wood carving tool, by the way), I carefully cut out the pieces.

A couple of notes here. First, I didn’t do the cutting on that nice laminate. I used a scrap piece of wood for backing. Also, the six horizontal lines on the bottom piece are intended to be cut so that the tabs on the other piece can fit into them. But just slice along the center of the line. Don’t actually cut out a hole, because then the tabs won’t stick in there. Also, it’s probably best if you wait until after the next step before cutting those slices. Finally, cut vertical and horizontal on the “+” signs on the top piece and then push a pencil through them to open the holes. The antenna will slide through those holes.

More fun with the glue stick. Cover the back side of the lower piece with glue and then attach a piece of aluminum foil. Cut along the outline and slice the horizontal lines:

Then, fold the top piece and fit the six tabs into the six slots you cut in the rectangular piece. As an added precaution, I used some packing tape on the back to hold the tabs down. Here are the two reflectors, ready for installation:

The Linksys router sits on the top of a bookshelf, about six feet off the ground. Here are pictures before and after installing the reflectors.

So how well does it work? I measured the signal strength in the living room with NetSurveyor before I installed the reflectors. The beacon quality fluctuated between 48 and 50%, and gave a beacon strength value of between -61 and -59 dBm. It rated the signal quality as “Very Good.” With the reflectors installed, beacon quality is between 52% and 55%, with a beacon strength value of -59 to -55 dBm. Again, signal quality is “Very Good.”  So the reflectors seem to work, but the change isn’t terribly large.

Just for comparison, beacon strength here in my office, with the router just a few feet away, is -46 dBm, quality is 70%, or “Excellent.”

The measurements above were taken with the Hawking directional antenna installed.

If I disable the directional antenna and remove the reflectors from the router, the signal ranges from non-existent to “Poor.” When I installed the reflectors, signal strength was consistently “Very Low,” but it was reliable. Strength was about -87 dBm.

Conclusion: the reflectors work, but not nearly as well as I had hoped. They do make the difference between no signal and a weak but usable signal, but I was hoping for something better. I think more experimentation is required: either two slightly larger reflectors, or one much larger reflector that sits behind the router rather than attaching it to the antennas. Until then, the USB directional antenna remains connected to the computer in the living room.