One word Jeff, jackhammer.
No, a jackhammer would not be efficient, a true geek would use dynamite.
Dynamite, Shmynamite.
Set up a flowing water system that gradually wears through the concrete, creating a smooth surface.
For faster results use acid. 
Itâs both cheaper and better to lay a pipe for network cabling.
As with all Big DIY, the caveat here should be âAs long as you get it right.â
When DIY goes well, cheap and quick. When DIY goes badly, slow, expensive and humiliating.
run a cable + hang some Chinese Paper Lanterns from it =
gigabit networking for your game room and ambient lighting for the patio.
I think thereâs a teeny bit of difference between building a cantenna and, uh, burying 15 feet of PVC 4" under the surface of a concrete patio.
One word Jeff, jackhammer.
No, a jackhammer would not be efficient, a true geek would use dynamite.
Never mind the jackhammer. Iâm going to use the Jeffhammer!
Wouldnât it be easier to just move your games room 15ft and rebuild it attached to your main building?
Oh wait, no it wouldnât. Go wireless!
Hey Now Jeff,
I sure do like wireless.
Coding Horror Fan,
Cetto
I think thereâs a teeny bit of difference between building a cantenna and, uh, burying 15 feet of PVC 4" under the surface of a concrete patio.
Well, if itâs a concrete patio, whatâs wrong with simply running a cable over it? No, I donât mean âup in the skyâ, nor â30 cm belowâ - I mean right over it. Yeah, you probably couldnât just put any cable, but if itâs got some sort of protection, why not? Maybe youâre bothered by looks? Thatâs just silly (plus itâs unnoticeable anyway).
9db more without wasting a money:
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html
(itâs only needed a paper, glue and metalic film)
Note.- This template y better than the other one already posted from freeantennas.com
I see some people recommending dd-wrt. Donât do it! Go with Tomato or one of the firmwares based on good old Linux rather than the Linksys stock firmware.
Read about the reasons not to use dd-wrt here:
http://www.bitsum.com/about-ddwrt.htm
dd-wrt is not an open source project; it even tries to violate the GPL (see link).
dd-wrt is full of bugs (just look at its bug tracker; new bugs are introduced with every new version).
dd-wrt is ill-performant. donât take my word for it; try a different firmware and compare.
I used to have similar problems.
But Markâs Infinite Solutions solved it for me:
http://www.marksinfinitesolutions.com/tutorials/default.asp?tutorial=IS_Wifi
Cheers,
Craig
Sheesh, no need for animosity. How was I to know that thereâs a concrete porch in the way?
Haha, Rudolf may be on to something.
Hey Jeff,
with this setup (specially considering the distance + use of wpa or wpa2), is the latency of the network still good to play games? do you happen to know what is the average ping time (if the xbox provides this info)? and how was it before with the older antenna?
As socrates said, try http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html
No fancy graph, but my Tivo box reports the signal as 60-70% now, when it was just 40% before the windsurfer.
A comment about ârequirementâ for gigabit (1000Mbit) network/switch:
A gigabit network is NOT necessary unless youâre running a NAS server with NFS/CIFS and sharing data files. For all other uses, including streaming, a standard 100Mbit network is more than adequate.
For instance you may think you need a gigabit network to stream DVDs from you server to your Xbox. But streaming a single DVD is about 5-8Mbit of your 100Mbit pipe! Blue-Ray HD media is about 38MBit/sec and HD-DVD media is about 28MBit/sec.
Plus if you install any streaming clients like Apple TV, Xbox 360 Media Center Extender, etc. they all come with 100Mbit network ports. So itâs rather pointless to install gigabit for streaming applications.
Actually, any networking is going to be somewhat costly, if one doesnât already have all of the gear in oneâs workshop. To go wired, one needs a crimper, RJ-45 connectors, and cable, not to mention external conduit, a fish, and other stuf most of us donât have (even if youâre a long-time homeowner.)
If one has all of those things, then thereâs still the issue of using oneâs weekend(s) for manual labor. It ainât laziness, but some of us reserve the weekend for more pleasureable projects, not for activities like digging up part of the backyard and water-proofing underground conduitâŚ
I love the floods of suggestions on how you could better design your infrastructure to not need this kind of solution, completely missing the point of the post that you found extending wireless network with home-made antennae is cool and fun.
Recently i had to help setup wireless network for my friend. He wanted to share his network with neighbor. He lives in apartments and his neighbor lives in same apartments in a building across a walkway, so approximately there are 200 feet between them. Being a regular reader of this blog I found this article and showed it to friend.
First thing, we went to a local Fryâs Electronics in search of a powerful antenna. I was gonna go with HAI7MD but the friend liked the Cantenna, so he bought it. I remember reading some bad reviews about Cantenna so I was not so sure itâll work.
Anyways, it turned out great and we did not even need an extension cable; originally we wanted to put cantenna on the balcony. The signal was pretty strong and seemed very reliable ( 5 bars out of six ). I wanted to run some fine tuning soft but couldnât get it to work; i think because of Vista OS. Another thing to note is that during our setup it was heavily raining so I guess the signal will be even stronger when its clear.
Anyways, great post.
After working in Tech Support for a company that manufactures wireless Access Points and CPE equipment, you hit it right on the button.
You could do all the simulations in the world, do everything on paper and then only after you set up your equipment, find out that your neighbor is jamming out 12db of signal from their badly installed omni antenna. People constantly ask why a particular radio/antenna doesnât work for them, even though they did no site survey, not even something as simple as taking a laptop out to the location to see what they could see.
Also, a general tip for when youâre just doing a point-to-point connection ( like what you seem to be doing, just AP-XBox ), the more directional antenna you use, the better. Not only does the FCC allow you to use more powerful antennas when you use a directional antenna, you also get less noise and interference.
Keep up the awesome work!
Dear all
Iâm Derek. China antennas factory (HuaDong communication co.,ltd)âŚ
We are able supply Antennas(Panel Antennas/Yagi Antennas/Grid Parabolic Antennas/Omni
Antennas/Ceiling Mount Antennas and small antennas and so on) and Cable and Cable connectorâŚ
We are good quality,we very recognition qualityâŚquality is our first step to successâŚ
Good quality and good price is avail for you businessâŚ
if you interested in us productâŚdonât hesitate pls contact directness
website http://www.huadongtx.com
MSN:ithwd@hotmail.com