Another good place to look is here... http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/ -Paul In a message dated 5/15/04 4:10:47 PM, ray@xxxxxxxxx writes: > > I had looked at various directional and gain antennas but soon realized > > that at 2.4GHz the coax and connector losses are going to eat up most > > of the gains unless you keep the coax real short. > > Don't waste $50 on something that would cost you less than $3 to build. You > can make a very respectable cantenna with a couple of soup cans and a > connector. Check this page for a nice illustration of one ... > > http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/homebrewant.html > > The dimensions are important! It should be 3.25 inches in diameter, and a > little more than 7 inches long. You can get away with connecting two cans > bottom to top to form a nice long barrel (I held mine together with duct > tape). > > Just about every one I have seen uses the N type connector (CD/Radio Antenna > style). Those connectors will run you five bucks, and for their size have > lots of loss. Also as Dan mentioned, the longer the cable, the more loss > you will receive. I decided to go with BNC connectors myself, and I ended > up hacking apart a few wireless cards and adding a BNC connector to them. > It also helps to have a crimper that will do BNC connectors. I was able to > make a 3 foot cable, BNC at both ends with solid (not stranded) copper core > inside. > > With my cantenna, and a line of sight path (no obstructions) I can sniff > signals from a full mile away (or more). The signal you get with a cantenna > can be deceiving, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly where it's coming from. > Also, you usually cannot send signals as far as you can receive them. In > other words, you may be able to sniff traffic from an AP, yet not join the > network. > > -Ray > > >