If you do not have the money for a commercial WiFi antenna and are looking for an inexpensive way to increase the range of your wireless network, This tin can waveguide antenna, or Cantenna, may be just the ticket. This design can be built for under $5 U.S. And reuses a food, juice, or other tin can. You’ll need: A N-Female chassis mount connector.
- How To Make A Cantenna
- Cantenna Wifi Booster
- How To Build A Cantenna
- Homemade Cantenna
- How To Build A Cantenna Tin Can
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Extend you Wifi Network With a Cantenna
How To Make A Cantenna
If you are interested in extending the range of your wifi network, and don’t mind a little construction, here are plans for building a 2.4 gHz high gain antenna for wireless networks. (A.K.A. Cantenna)
With the use of one of these cantennas, I have been able to connect to my wireless access point a half a mile away!
(they were pretty ideal conditions, but more on that later..) And I probably could have gone farther, but I wasn’t too keen on hiking through the woods with tall weeds, and uneven terrain balancing my laptop with one hand, and pointing one of these cantenna with the other hand.
(yes, the neighbors are used to me doing strange things, and they just smile and nod.. Yes people, he really is harmless!)
Here is a photo of the finished wifi cantenna:
Cantenna Wifi Booster
Typically my approach to projects is that they need to be inexpensive, but they also need to use readily available materials. this project is no different. Please excuse me while I slip into “geek mode” for a minute. This type of antenna is what is called a waveguide.
How To Build A Cantenna
There are several parameters. The two most significant ones are called thecut off frequency of the TM 01 modeand the cutoff frequency of the TE 11 mode. Basically these two parameters define the highest and lowest frequency that the cantenna can operate.
Homemade Cantenna
How To Build A Cantenna Tin Can
My problem was that I was having a hard time finding some sort of tube that was readily available. The closest thing I could find was a 4 inch aluminum dryer vent tube. This, according to waveguide calculations, was too big in diameter, and causes the upper cut off frequency to be too low. However, in messing around with many antennas through the years, I have realized that although antenna theories help us design antennas, sometimes it is an inexact science.