Q: OK, I’ve built one of your wifi cantennas, and it just doesn’t work! Its worse than with out the wifi cantenna. What gives?
All too often when I get asked this question, after more questions about the installation, I find out that they put the wifi cantenna on the roof of their house, then ran a long piece of coax through their house. The problem is that is that at wifi frequencies, coax / pigtails are very high in RF loss. I recommend a pigtail / coax length between your wifi cantenna and your network device of no more than three feet. What is happening is that you have lost more signal in the coax than what you have gained in the wifi cantenna. BTW, I have seen people put wireless access points in waterproof boxes and mount the whole assembly on their roof, then run cat-5 cable and power up to it.
Q: So only one of my friends can connect to me, what’s going on?
This is a highly directional antenna, therefore it only performs very well in one direction. Oh by the way, wifi is at microwave frequencies. Since this antenna concentrates the signal, don’t look into the cantenna while it is connected.
I recently received an email from someone who came up with a nice way to mount the WiFi Cantenna. Here is a photo of how he did it:
He used two more 4″ Dryer Vent clamps, a sheet of aluminum, a couple of conduit clamps, and PVC pipe for the mast. Thanks Jim! Nice work!
OK, I think that about covers it! I hope I have given you some ideas on how to extend your wifi network. Good luck!
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