How to increase wireless signal?

Basar

I have googled it a bit last night and creative minds have created dozens of solutions for increasing wireless signal strenght. Most of these solutions however, aim at increasing the reception of the wireless signal. I am on the other hand, trying to increase the distribution of the signal. Does anyone have any sort of real-world examples they have done themselves? I checked lifehacker.com and there're a few, but would like to hear your experiences as well. Many thanks.

I have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router with an Airties ADSL modem.

Willeth

I seem to remember lifehacker or 5min having a paper antenna amplifier you could construct.

Fofamit

Well there are various ways to increase your wifi signal from your router:

1) Wireless repeaters: These aren't as pretty as they may seem.. but worth looking into, it does as the title says, it basically picks up a signal and repeats it. I think you can find them on tigerdirect or Canada Computers:http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=005532&cid=NT.400


2) Make a wireless parabola: Here is a simple youtube video with a link on the additional information for a printout to make it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUTT8wdN_VA&feature=related

3) This is totally fake, but hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY8Wi7XRXCA

Basar

Fofamit, thanks for the info. I definitely wanna go DIY route. I would check out those videos but unfortunately I frickin live in Turkey, and my ISP has Youtube blocked because of a legal dispute. Grrrr. Anyways, I searched wireless parabola on Google and came across a few good solutions. One of them being this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,5605782~root=wlan~mode=flat

I just wrapped one of my old mouse pads with alumnium foil and put it right next to my router antenna and the wireless signal strength jumped from 33% to 44% (shock smiley here)

I am hopeful

Fofamit

Basar wrote: »

Fofamit, thanks for the info. I definitely wanna go DIY route. I would check out those videos but unfortunately I frickin live in Turkey, and my ISP has Youtube blocked because of a legal dispute. Grrrr. Anyways, I searched wireless parabola on Google and came across a few good solutions. One of them being this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,5605782~root=wlan~mode=flat

I just wrapped one of my old mouse pads with alumnium foil and put it right next to my router antenna and the wireless signal strength jumped from 33% to 44% (shock smiley here)

I am hopeful

Here is a template for the one showed in the video:
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html

Basar

Fofamit wrote: »

Basar wrote: »

Fofamit, thanks for the info. I definitely wanna go DIY route. I would check out those videos but unfortunately I frickin live in Turkey, and my ISP has Youtube blocked because of a legal dispute. Grrrr. Anyways, I searched wireless parabola on Google and came across a few good solutions. One of them being this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,5605782~root=wlan~mode=flat

I just wrapped one of my old mouse pads with alumnium foil and put it right next to my router antenna and the wireless signal strength jumped from 33% to 44% (shock smiley here)

I am hopeful

Here is a template for the one showed in the video:
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html

Thanks mate. :^:

Iconoclysm

It also may be worth updating the routers firmware with one of the open source alternatives that allow increasing the routers transmission power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G
http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

The usual warnings apply. Updating the firmware could brick the router completely, so if that worries you, best steer clear of such malarkey.

Basar

Thanks Iconoclysm. I have to ask though, is there anything I can do if I have two wireless routers? Like connect one to the other and place it a little further away to increase the transmission range?

TL DR

You could load DD-WRT firmware. It has options to increase your signal output.
Lifehacker: Turn Your $60 Router Into a $600 Router

Hlubocky

DD-WRT also has the ability to use two different routers to expand your coverage. I'm not sure if that is a feature common to all firmwares, but I just recently installed DD-WRT and remembered reading about it.