# home made antenna for wireless? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891 "2008-01-01T16:53:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/1 "2008-01-01T16:53:09Z")
What is this anntenna supposed to do? And is it hook up to something on the computer? I cann’t read the geekspeak enough to get it. :smack: [http://wireless.gumph.org/content/4/3/011-mini-wireless-antenna.html](http://wireless.gumph.org/content/4/3/011-mini-wireless-antenna.html) ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/2 "2008-01-01T17:09:28Z")
Looks like it’s an antenna for Wifi. If it works it should give you a larger range, less signal deterioration (usually meaning higher transfer speed) or both. If your wifi point is in the same room as your laptop, it probably won’t make any difference, but it might help if the signal is weak. There is a lot of information around on building your own antennas for wifi. It’s a cheap and fairly easy way to extend the range of your network. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/3 "2008-01-01T17:14:45Z")
Just in case that was still too much geekspeak: wifi is a standard for wireless computer networks, very popular in homes and businesses that don’t want to lay a lot of cable and/or don’t want to have their laptops “fixed to the wall”. Basically you need an “access point” that translates from the wifi to a fixed network / internet connection and a small wifi card in each computer that wants access to the wifi network. Many laptops these days have wifi built in, as does apple’s mac mini and some other “desktop” machines. ---
**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/4 "2008-01-01T17:18:27Z")
[QUOTE=Superfluous Parentheses] Just in case that was still too much geekspeak: wifi is a standard for wireless computer networks, very popular in homes and businesses that don’t want to lay a lot of cable and/or don’t want to have their laptops “fixed to the wall”. Basically you need an “access point” that translates from the wifi to a fixed network / internet connection and a small wifi card in each computer that wants access to the wifi network. Many laptops these days have wifi built in, as does apple’s mac mini and some other “desktop” machines. [/QUOTE] Thanks. Does this home made antenna need to then attack to the wifi card in the computer? How much of a boost are we talking? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/5 "2008-01-01T17:44:43Z")
[QUOTE=drhess] Thanks. Does this home made antenna need to then attack to the wifi card in the computer? [/quote] From the description, it appears that the antenna is attached to the laptop casing. I assume that this is for laptops with built-in wifi that use the laptop case as the antenna. I really don’t know if that’s how built-in wifi cards generally work. > [@](#): > > How much of a boost are we talking? No idea 🙂 It depends a lot on the type of antenna and even then it’s complicated to calculate. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-made-antenna-for-wireless/431891/6 "2008-01-01T22:45:05Z")
[QUOTE=Superfluous Parentheses] From the description, it appears that the antenna is attached to the laptop casing. [/QUOTE] I don’t think so - check this sentence: > [@](#): > > All you need now is to put a connector on the other end that is compatible with the connector on your wireless card. I think this applies to a laptop with a wireless card that includes some sort of coaxial antenna connector.