Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Extend Your Router's Range with Cardboard and Foil

This cheap fast DIY idea I saw online. Here's proof that it works:


Here's how:

1. Find a piece of cardboard in the right size and shape to cradle your router on 3 sides.
2. Cover the cardboard with aluminum foil.
3. Set the router down in the  foil-covered cardboard, antennae outward, of course.

The Divine Cabin receives only satellite Internet (there's no cable out here!) for two computers and the phone.The farther from the router, the worse the signal: in the living room, 3 bars and wavering, the bedroom 2 bars or 1. Now I get 4 solid bars in the living room and a solid 2 or sometimes 3 in the bedroom.

Instead of foil-covered cardboard, my other options for boosting my signal were: 1) Buy 50 feet of Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cable, drill and thread it through 2 log walls to attach it to the computer. 2) Buy a $70 signal booster, hard to program and slows the download by half, and might not even work. 3) Extend the current double-barreled satellite cable but accept that it might lose speed or get noisy at the splice, and I'd need to hire a geek to do it correctly.

It's not pretty, but it was made in America:



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