Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de
on 15 Jul 09:31
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So better use a fanless Dyson fan? 🤔
osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
on 16 Jul 04:45
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Now we're thinking with portals
Gyroplast@pawb.social
on 15 Jul 06:58
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I still have a soft spot for troll physics. Needs more magnets, though.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
on 15 Jul 10:08
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How do they work‽
Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de
on 15 Jul 13:07
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would you be interested in talking to a scientist?
captainlezbian@lemmy.world
on 16 Jul 06:04
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By interacting with the m dimensional component of the em waves
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 15 Jul 15:28
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Yeah, but that makes the waves more choppy and stormlike which increases degradation of the equipment on the other side as the waves collide more strongly against it.
SuppenMartl@beehaw.org
on 15 Jul 19:19
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Ehm sure. Look the red waves in the lower picture are definitely longer. Voila!
This can actually be beneficial if your router is right at the corner of your house. The foil acts as a reflector for some of the radiation that would've been wasted, and thus improves the signal quality within your house.
osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
on 15 Jul 05:55
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I am 80% sure this is a net loss with modern mu-mimo radios, and it will absolutely trash your phy rate
Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net
on 15 Jul 05:58
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wat
osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
on 15 Jul 06:07
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MU-MIMO (Multiple-User Multiple In Multiple Out) does [math] to assist in directing signal to multiple clients at once via multipathing, which this reflector would fuck with the math of in (I think) a detrimental way. Regardless of its impact on that technology, higher-end wifi phy rates (the negotiated modulation rate between 2 stations, i.e. the wifi access point/router and your phone) would get shredded by having a reflector bouncing signal between the multiple antennas, forcing clients into artificially lower speeds for a [potential] marginal boost to gain.
This stopped being a helpful thing to do somewhere around the transition between wifi 4 and 5 (802.11n --> 802.11ac)
keepcarrot@hexbear.net
on 15 Jul 06:11
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I remember going to a LAN that got its wifi from a local library via collander-boosting. Those were the days, and carrying around CRT monitors was sort of like exercise
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
on 15 Jul 09:56
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tbf i’d imagine a lot of people still have wifi 4
suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
on 16 Jul 02:20
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What if I’m doing it to block signals from roughly half the 60 other APs with half a dozen devices each I have broadcasting nearby?
osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
on 16 Jul 04:39
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Then it'll do literally exactly the same thing as above, but with a lower noise floor than otherwise. Whether lowering airtime contention (or, rather, lowering airtime contention for one station while not doing so for others, unless you're talking about putting a layer of foil wallpaper up on a wall lmao) in exchange for all that is a net benefit for you, I couldn't say. If it's all wifi6 or higher though, I wouldn't bother.
suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
on 16 Jul 11:27
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lmao
That is near exactly what I was considering, I live between an apartment building and a park, more or less.
To actually be beneficial as a reflector, the foil would need to be a specific distance from the antenna, which should be a certain fraction of the wavelength. Source: I used to make parabolic reflectors out of milk cartons about twenty years ago.
I once made one of these with a bigger can and mounted it on an old 10’ satellite dish. Managed to get Wi-Fi across several thousand yards without issue
wait i thought for some reason that pringles can sized waveguide would have cutoff frequency above 2.4ghz. nevermind, there’s something better because bigger aperture can get you more directivity like this lea.hamradio.si/~s53mv/wumca/cup.html i made two out of cookie tins and it works over 500m at least
We didn’t use Pringles, I think it was these big peaches cans
fullsquare@awful.systems
on 15 Jul 13:42
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i’ve used the same (800ml can) and this one works well. cookie tin is 15cm dia 8cm tall and it works, but size can vary a bit. you can copy or scale slightly designs of 13cm band antennas
Indeed, although this type of thing was more common with older wifi generations, so I’m not surprised kids these days wont know.
For example: We cut the top off an old beer can, poked a hole and stuck it onto the antenna to have stable download speeds across a courtyard.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de
on 15 Jul 09:30
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Reminds me of the diy antenna made out of copper wire, an empty CD spool and a single CD on its back. Those antennas could work as far as 1km if there was no obstruction, or 400m through light obstructions. It was awesome.
Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 10:41
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I remember like 15 or 20 years ago the popular thing was printable papercraft doohickeys that you’d cut out and glue together with aluminum foil on the backside that were like little satellite dishes that mounted on the antennas that were supposed to boost/aim your wifi signal. I gave them a try, but if they made a difference it wasn’t big enough to be noticeable.
Yeah, one of our problems was rain and thick fog causing massive drops and even disconnects on the connection going out from the router as 2.4Ghz really doesn’t like water. The antenna on our side was fine for sending signals back we just couldn’t get it stable incoming, which is why we did the can trick.
Etterra@discuss.online
on 15 Jul 06:27
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I stumbled onto these on Amazon last night actually. The user submitted video reviews are insane. I was screaming. I got to the head scarf that blocks the 5Gs and I had to stop.
Clearwater@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 09:01
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I unironically do something similar to this. In my area, the only options are a dogshit local WISP, Starlink/other satellite, or (where possible) cellular.
I am one of the “lucky” people who are able to use cell for my internet, however whether it’s the cell company having a craptastic network, software/hardware bugs on the my customer equipment, or a combination of both, there is only ONE cell tower I can connect to which yields a useful connection.
All other towers result in the equipment failing to connect to the tower, connecting but failing to get an internet connection, or only yielding download speeds 5Mbit of less.
I have found that by shoving sheet metal around my ISP’s equipment, I can quite easily block off the non-functional towers and ensure they’re never connected to. I don’t think speeds are any better, but it does help with reliability.
Both to some degree, realistically. I used an old collander as a signal reflector for a wifi dongle on the end of a USB extension cable and was able to boost the signal up to about 4x, or maybe half the range of the purpose-built and highly directional Yagi antenna I eventually bought to replace that kludge.
I have tried that. I have a dish taken from a directional WiFi antenna. When placed behind the gateway, it sometimes increases speeds, sometimes hurts speeds, and sometimes does nothing. I found it a bit too inconsistent, and a bit too ugly, to be used permanently. If I had a proper mounting solution, I might have gotten it tuned just right, however at that point I would rather just buy and mount external antennas to hook into the gateway.
My exact deployment today actually doesn’t even have anything behind the gateway. That is just because for my specific case, all the towers it can reach are within a roughly 90 degree field of view. To block the bad ones, I really only need to block off a few sections of the window it’s sitting near.
You might want to search on the word cantenna.
Helped set up a cantenna for a friend’s parents once. They lived in a lake house for a few years, but they were in a dead zone for pretty much everything.
They had a cell booster that would occasionally get a single if luck was on your side, but once we set up the cantenna on the booster, they had a steady signal .
I have put my router in a 4 m parabol antenna, with this the signal has also improved somewhat, it only prevents me from using the sofa that is next to the router.
threaded - newest
Directs the wifi.
In all different directions…
Back in my day, we used a Pringles can.
When I was a kid we would connect a coat hanger to the TV to get the news from 2 towns over
We still do. It’s a fun trick.
I still go war-driving from time to time. 🙂
Didn’t say anything about the effectiveness…
I used to steal Wi-Fi with an outdated Linux installation DVD.
It’s not stealing if the wifi is just being broadcast unencrypted.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/5a5ee84e-4b55-479a-89dd-27f8161d4f0b.jpeg">
What astounds me is despite being a crappy drawing, the person drew that fan with proper perspective and proportion.
I sell fans, this is true
Makes download speeds great, but upload drops off a cliff
not if you mount the fan on the ceiling, and let it lift up the air
You another fan behind your phone facing towards the router
…never stops buffering.
I sell the truth, that is my fan. Mits off! You now owe me $5.
The moving parts could disturb MIMO
So better use a fanless Dyson fan? 🤔
Now we're thinking with portals
I still have a soft spot for troll physics. Needs more magnets, though.
How do they work‽
would you be interested in talking to a scientist?
By interacting with the m dimensional component of the em waves
Yeah, but that makes the waves more choppy and stormlike which increases degradation of the equipment on the other side as the waves collide more strongly against it.
Ehm sure. Look the red waves in the lower picture are definitely longer. Voila!
OnlyWififans 😳Anon accidentally recreates the Michelson-Morley experiment.
if its thick enough the aluminum, will act as a faradays cage.
Well maybe if the router would behave itself it wouldn’t find itself in a cage
And double as a bomb shelter
Keeps out the conspiracy-based posts and only lets facts through.
uh, is this real?
That is indeed a photograph of something someone has done
fake.
It’s a fake photograph. It’s actually a woodcut cleverly done to mimic one. It’s quite good, you can hardly make out the crosshatching.
What it depicts is real though.
😯
This can actually be beneficial if your router is right at the corner of your house. The foil acts as a reflector for some of the radiation that would've been wasted, and thus improves the signal quality within your house.
I am 80% sure this is a net loss with modern mu-mimo radios, and it will absolutely trash your phy rate
wat
MU-MIMO (Multiple-User Multiple In Multiple Out) does [math] to assist in directing signal to multiple clients at once via multipathing, which this reflector would fuck with the math of in (I think) a detrimental way. Regardless of its impact on that technology, higher-end wifi phy rates (the negotiated modulation rate between 2 stations, i.e. the wifi access point/router and your phone) would get shredded by having a reflector bouncing signal between the multiple antennas, forcing clients into artificially lower speeds for a [potential] marginal boost to gain.
This stopped being a helpful thing to do somewhere around the transition between wifi 4 and 5 (802.11n --> 802.11ac)
I remember going to a LAN that got its wifi from a local library via collander-boosting. Those were the days, and carrying around CRT monitors was sort of like exercise
tbf i’d imagine a lot of people still have wifi 4
What if I’m doing it to block signals from roughly half the 60 other APs with half a dozen devices each I have broadcasting nearby?
Then it'll do literally exactly the same thing as above, but with a lower noise floor than otherwise. Whether lowering airtime contention (or, rather, lowering airtime contention for one station while not doing so for others, unless you're talking about putting a layer of foil wallpaper up on a wall lmao) in exchange for all that is a net benefit for you, I couldn't say. If it's all wifi6 or higher though, I wouldn't bother.
That is near exactly what I was considering, I live between an apartment building and a park, more or less.
To actually be beneficial as a reflector, the foil would need to be a specific distance from the antenna, which should be a certain fraction of the wavelength. Source: I used to make parabolic reflectors out of milk cartons about twenty years ago.
This is basic interference physics.
Long live the Pringles cantenna
.
I once made one of these with a bigger can and mounted it on an old 10’ satellite dish. Managed to get Wi-Fi across several thousand yards without issue
wait i thought for some reason that pringles can sized waveguide would have cutoff frequency above 2.4ghz. nevermind, there’s something better because bigger aperture can get you more directivity like this lea.hamradio.si/~s53mv/wumca/cup.html i made two out of cookie tins and it works over 500m at least
We didn’t use Pringles, I think it was these big peaches cans
i’ve used the same (800ml can) and this one works well. cookie tin is 15cm dia 8cm tall and it works, but size can vary a bit. you can copy or scale slightly designs of 13cm band antennas
helical antennas work fine too and look goofy as hell
pringles can is too small for 2.4ghz cantenna,it’s near cutoff frequency but just barely, you need 10cm-ish diameter can or shorter 16cm-ish canWardriving intensifies
It will probably reflect some of the radiation. Wifi reception will be poorer behind the aluminium and possibly better in front.
A cheapskates version of a directional antenna.
Indeed, although this type of thing was more common with older wifi generations, so I’m not surprised kids these days wont know.
For example: We cut the top off an old beer can, poked a hole and stuck it onto the antenna to have stable download speeds across a courtyard.
Reminds me of the diy antenna made out of copper wire, an empty CD spool and a single CD on its back. Those antennas could work as far as 1km if there was no obstruction, or 400m through light obstructions. It was awesome.
I remember like 15 or 20 years ago the popular thing was printable papercraft doohickeys that you’d cut out and glue together with aluminum foil on the backside that were like little satellite dishes that mounted on the antennas that were supposed to boost/aim your wifi signal. I gave them a try, but if they made a difference it wasn’t big enough to be noticeable.
.
We used to do this with antennas for tvs (those circular ones) It used to work in rains too
Yeah, one of our problems was rain and thick fog causing massive drops and even disconnects on the connection going out from the router as 2.4Ghz really doesn’t like water. The antenna on our side was fine for sending signals back we just couldn’t get it stable incoming, which is why we did the can trick.
Not as effective as the anti-5G wire cages.
I stumbled onto these on Amazon last night actually. The user submitted video reviews are insane. I was screaming. I got to the head scarf that blocks the 5Gs and I had to stop.
EMF BLOCKING BASEBALL CAP
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8f129eea-5901-4e19-8a30-364c82c0c493.jpeg">
Oh that’s just magical lol
Mr Robot
I unironically do something similar to this. In my area, the only options are a dogshit local WISP, Starlink/other satellite, or (where possible) cellular.
I am one of the “lucky” people who are able to use cell for my internet, however whether it’s the cell company having a craptastic network, software/hardware bugs on the my customer equipment, or a combination of both, there is only ONE cell tower I can connect to which yields a useful connection.
All other towers result in the equipment failing to connect to the tower, connecting but failing to get an internet connection, or only yielding download speeds 5Mbit of less.
I have found that by shoving sheet metal around my ISP’s equipment, I can quite easily block off the non-functional towers and ensure they’re never connected to. I don’t think speeds are any better, but it does help with reliability.
I wonder if it’s not only boxing the other towers but also boring the signal to the one you are aiming at, because you put a big mirror behind
Both to some degree, realistically. I used an old collander as a signal reflector for a wifi dongle on the end of a USB extension cable and was able to boost the signal up to about 4x, or maybe half the range of the purpose-built and highly directional Yagi antenna I eventually bought to replace that kludge.
I have tried that. I have a dish taken from a directional WiFi antenna. When placed behind the gateway, it sometimes increases speeds, sometimes hurts speeds, and sometimes does nothing. I found it a bit too inconsistent, and a bit too ugly, to be used permanently. If I had a proper mounting solution, I might have gotten it tuned just right, however at that point I would rather just buy and mount external antennas to hook into the gateway.
My exact deployment today actually doesn’t even have anything behind the gateway. That is just because for my specific case, all the towers it can reach are within a roughly 90 degree field of view. To block the bad ones, I really only need to block off a few sections of the window it’s sitting near.
You might want to search on the word cantenna. Helped set up a cantenna for a friend’s parents once. They lived in a lake house for a few years, but they were in a dead zone for pretty much everything. They had a cell booster that would occasionally get a single if luck was on your side, but once we set up the cantenna on the booster, they had a steady signal .
On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study
I can’t tell if this is legit or an elaborate troll.
Remember windsurfers? You put them on the single antenna of your old linsky router.
I have put my router in a 4 m parabol antenna, with this the signal has also improved somewhat, it only prevents me from using the sofa that is next to the router.
I did this back in 2010-13, to get better internet in my house! It was a video from a youtube, where he used cereal box with aluminum.
Remember Pringles antennas? Same energy.