Boost your mobile broadband signal, with a sieve.

JonathanAnon

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, apologies if it has..

It's not a joke people. A few weeks ago I watched this video

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-hack-wifi-usb-adapter-for-better-reception-210506/

And I'd been meaning to get a sieve, and finally on the way home from work last nite, I got a medium sized (approximately 7 inch diameter) sieve for €3.95 in Tesco. Brought it home, drilled a hole in the centre and cut out a rectangle shape in the middle of it..

I then took it outside and put my Huawei E122 through it. As it was just a test I didnt fix it properly so it may look a bit flimsy, though it did hold throughout my test.. I also have a piece of plastic covering the USB connections from the rain..



Without sieve.. my router shows 32% signal
With the sieve.. my router shows 48% signal

I've noticed before that these USB dongle really dont like movement.. so I have to sort out the issue of fixing the E122 to the sieve properly and then fixing the whole thing to the wall..

Has anybody else tried this?

William Powell

Well grasshopper, so you are endevoring to update the ancient art of WokFi


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi

Only differnce is your using a 3G dongle in place of a USB Wifi device this site has always been a favourite of mine.

JonathanAnon

yeah I spotted that site as well..



They seem to prefer to shape it and direct it like a satellite dish, whereas the first video seems to have it just vertical..

I'm gonna fix the dongle to the sieve, and then toy around with different positions

William Powell

I had some mixed results with an old satellite dish (60cm) from the Lidl satellite camping set. I put a 15cm long piece of half inch pipe insulation into the LNB mount and found this held the USB dongle (E180) quite securely while allowing adjustment. I gave that project up as I don't have line of site to a mast and didn't have a good place to secure the satellite dish. The results were mixed, signal strenght went up but download speeds seemed to go down , I'm putting that down to not having a line of site to a mast and I'm thinking the "uplink" signal was being concentrated in a way that didn't help my situation, more time spent and a faster way of registering the signal strenght might have helped. The same sat dish with a bog standard USB WiFi dongle got a usable connection (Windows strenght indication of 3 bars) with a wireless network over 3Km away. I also have a Wok sitting on a shelf besides me that I've been meaning to turn into a WokFi project for the last 3 years

Amalgam

Would it help to situate the USB dongle, like an LNB. on the end of a stalk, at a distance to the curved surface?

Some dongles have the antenna on one side of the circuit board, you could face that towards the wok\sieve\'kitchen module'.



My Art Diploma is in the post..

lucernarian

Did you try simply leaving the USB device outside without any sieve?? UMTS signals benefit especially from being used outside.

William Powell

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Did you try simply leaving the USB device outside without any sieve?? UMTS signals benefit especially from being used outside.

Think thats what the OP's with and without sieve percentages refer to, both outside?

lucernarian

I think so too, but I wanted to confirm. It'd be interesting to see how that sieve would work in an attic pointed at the nearest base station!

BEASTERLY

An empty pringles carton is all you need! Just slot your 3G/wifi dongle inside.

JonathanAnon

Hi lads, I always had the bband device outside.. i drilled a hole in the window to and fixed it to a lump of metal that I cut..

So 32% was outside the window. 48% was outside the window with the sieve..

lucernarian

Find out where your nearest 3G base station is so that you can "point" the sieve assembly correctly at it. This website is very useful: http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/siteviewer.273.LE.asp

Amalgam

Excellent To_be_confirmed, I kind of knew where my local mast was.. I was right.

Amalgam

Is there a command, or software, that will return the numerical value of the mast I'm currently making use of?

I have two clusters of masts, roughly the same distance away, just curious which one I should prioritise for pointing an antenna to.

Does it matter?

lucernarian

Go outside and look at which has the better line of sight! The one with fewer trees and buildings in the way, and particularly hills and the like.

William Powell

Amalgam wrote: »

Is there a command, or software, that will return the numerical value of the mast I'm currently making use of?

I have two clusters of masts, roughly the same distance away, just curious which one I should prioritise for pointing an antenna to.

Does it matter?

Only software I can find is this and the number it returns doesn't seem any realtionship with the site numbers on Comregs out of date site.

To use MDMA (link above) is a bit weird, but the trick is to connect then kill the connection manager software from TASK MANGER, then launch
MDMA. Either that or use DUN to make a conenction. But sometimes it just fails to work.

I'd take a look at the mast and plot its location on a map and try and work out how many houses will be covered by each, tricky to impossible I know, but as there are 3 roughly equally spaced sectors it can become obvious in some places that one sector (hopefully one your in) will have far fewer potential users in it.

If you find any better software let us know.

lucernarian

In most cases (probably less so in Dublin) a base station can be viewed from the ground, so even visiting the nearest ones to see which way the antennas are pointing could be very useful.

William Powell

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

In most cases (probably less so in Dublin) a base station can be viewed from the ground, so even visiting the nearest ones to see which way the antennas are pointing could be very useful.

I was going to suggest that but all the masts near me have 2 or more operators gear on them so when you look at them you have no idea which one is which. But thinking about it it wasn't such a bad idea because each operator will apply a similar set of rules to get the best population coverage (depending on where their other masts are) so the sectors they cover will often be similar.

JonathanAnon

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

This website is very useful: http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/siteviewer.273.LE.asp

Yeah I've been using that site for a while.. It's extremely handy, particularly for when I'm setting it up for friends.. All the mast are centralised in the nearest town, so it's easy where I am at the moment.... and that is the direction that I have the thing pointed..

digiman

William Powell wrote: »

I was going to suggest that but all the masts near me have 2 or more operators gear on them so when you look at them you have no idea which one is which. But thinking about it it wasn't such a bad idea because each operator will apply a similar set of rules to get the best population coverage (depending on where their other masts are) so the sectors they cover will often be similar.

If you send me a close up photo of the mast I can tell you who is at which height if you want? Also let me know which mast it is?

Dean820

As crazy as it sounds, my old college lecturer said a Pringles tin could boost the signal as well.

William Powell

digiman wrote: »

If you send me a close up photo of the mast I can tell you who is at which height if you want? Also let me know which mast it is?

Must remember to take the camera with me, the mast I'm thinking on looks like it has 3 sets of gear on it yet Comregs sitefinder only indicates 2 mobile phone companies using the mast?

Dean820 wrote: »

As crazy as it sounds, my old college lecturer said a Pringles tin could boost the signal as well.

You get some crazy History lecturers

I did try a pringles cantenna but can't say it was a huge success this might have been the reason (from PC FAQ's: Build a 'Cantenna' Aerial )

The Great Pringles Cantenna Myth

You can make a wave guide from any old round or square metal container with an open end. Pringles can tubes are sometimes used (they're not much good); the tetra-brik type 1-litre foil-lined milk and juice cartons work better. The Pringles tube is too narrow at this frequency, and also probably needs more metal in it. As well as being too narrow, it would need to be impossibly long at this frequency,...

Dean820

(waves fist at college lecturer)