Cardboard WiFi Antenna Upgrade 200
An anonymous reader writes "A British company called Tritium is marketing a piece of cardboard with metal foil on one side. You order it for under US$25, shipping included, and you get a flat envelope with the cardboard. Cut it out, shape it into a parabola and snap it into the little stand. Then slip it over your current antenna. It is advertised to extend the range of your current antenna by 2 to 3 times. See their website for more information on the cleverly named Tritium Flatenna."
Hah (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hah (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hah (Score:2)
I've seen something very similiar to this, which was for the same purpose. But the guy simply said how to form it yourself.
There's plenty of math that can and should be done with it, but lots of people do it by the "wing it" method. I took a day calculating the dimensions for a 2.4Ghz pringles-can type antenna, and made a few from dryer vent tube (cheap at Home Depot). It worked out very well, but I still prefer a good
Re:Hah (Score:4, Funny)
Then there are the guys who advertise a fool-proof cockroach killer for sale, just send $25, will work every time.
Of course, what you get is two wooden blocks and instructions that say, place cockroach on first block, smash with second block, repeat as needed.
Tritium (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tritium (Score:4, Informative)
The main difference here is that there have been many studies on radiation exposure over both short term and long term durations. There have been far fewer studies on the effects of high frequency, low energy RF. When you consider what high frequency, high energy RF and even low frequency high energy RF can do to the human body, it sure makes you wonder if this stuff is safe anyway.
People this paranoid, however, are definately the target market for this kind of antenna.
To me, the whole thing reeks a little on the surface of ads proclaiming something 'it's like attaching a four foot antenna to your cell phone!, though the obvious benefit here is that it's an antenna tuned to a specific frequency designed to make an omnidirectional antenna a little more directional. Still when you can make it for about $1 using a ruler, some foil, and some scissors you have to wonder why they are even bothering.
Re:Tritium (Score:3, Interesting)
True, tritium has a half life of about 15 years (closer to 12 though.) However, when it comes to ingesting radioactive material, you need to be more concerned with the biological half-life. That is how fast the material will be excreted from you body. For tritium, it is just over 9 days. For tritium to harm you, you have too ingest a pretty large quantity. I know all about th
Re:Tritium (Score:5, Funny)
I can't decide which kind of rat's eyes are creepier: original blood red reflective glow or new cool green self-illuminated glow.
Re:Tritium (Score:2)
Re:Tritium (Score:5, Funny)
How Do You Eat Hydrogen? (Score:2)
I suspect you are thinking of Radium. [homestead.com]
Re:How Do You Eat Hydrogen? (Score:2, Informative)
You can disolve tritium in a phospor liquid. Tritium is usually used in compounds or molecules that have been 'tritiated'. Like tritiated water, tritiated thymidine, etc.
Re:Tritium (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tritium (Score:3, Informative)
Tritium's beta has a mean of 6KeV... you need a beta with an energy of at least 70KeV to penetrate the dead layer of cells in your skin.
Low-Sodium salt... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Low-Sodium salt... (Score:4, Funny)
Also known as chlorine?
Re:Low-Sodium salt... (Score:2)
We used it as a radioactive tracer in a Hazardous Materials Incident Response Supervisor class I once took.
Apparently, scatter some on a chemical spill and it becomes "mixed radioactive waste" and an extremely expensive remediation (clean up).
Re:Tritium (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone can grow their own tomatoes, or search for gold or gemstones, but how many choose instead to buy tomatoes, gold, or gems? Often tomatoes in the grocery taste like wet cardboard and sell for $3.99/pound, which is why I grow my own when I can. But I also search for gold and gemstone deposits. Some are DIY'ers; most are not.
-cp-
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets [alaska-freegold.com]
Re:Tritium (Score:2, Funny)
are you sure you don't mean Iridium [wired.com]?
Re:Tritium (Score:2, Funny)
Make your own (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Make your own (Score:5, Insightful)
Soup can stopped waveguide. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Make your own (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Make your own (Score:2)
Re:Make your own -> splayed beer can (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey! This actually works (Score:2)
This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:3, Funny)
click [tritium.co.uk]
click [tritium.co.uk]
click [tritium.co.uk]
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:2)
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:2)
News != journalism. Slashdot doesn't even have any journalists.
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:2)
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:2)
News != preclusion of advertisement. If it's new and of interest to us, then it passes.
Advertising != bad. Quitcherbitchen.
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:4, Funny)
oh.
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:2)
slashola [caedmon.net]
S
Re:This looks strangely like advertisement (Score:4, Funny)
Luckily I have a paper hat coated with tinfoil that I can sell to you for $19.99 to block out all these kinds of advertisements.
Microwave Pizzas (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Microwave Pizzas (Score:2)
- "Microwave pizzas, hot pockets, etc come with foil-backed cardboard underneath."
Would that have the same effect as aluminum foil? I thought it was microwave absorbing - That's the idea, right - it gets hot and cooks the pizza?Re: Microwave Pizzas (Score:2, Informative)
Microwave Pizza boxes make rotten antennas. (Score:4, Informative)
No, the previous poster had it right.
Your basic microwave heats the food where there's water or resistive material (like carbon). So it tends to make crispy materia soggy (by "steaming" it with the water evaporated from the wet places). And if you heat it long enough to dry it out, some spots heat enough to become burned - at which point they absorb more microwaves and become MORE burned - in a positive feedback that makes spotty burns rather than a crispy crust.
The material is very thinly coated with metal and quite resistive. So it absorbs a portion of the microwaves and becomes very hot. The infrared is used to crisp the surface of the material, like a broiler would.
Getting the packaging balanced - so the food is thawed, frozen, and crisped properly in the oven - takes some work. (Resistive cookware is available for do-it-yourselfers who want to broil in a microwave oven.)
Such resistive packaging would make a rotten reflector. It's more like a "stealth" coating on an aircraft than a microwave mirror. (It might be useful, though, to make a microwave absorbing wall between your antenna and a nearby interference source.)
Re:Microwave Pizza boxes make rotten antennas. (Score:4, Funny)
2)?????????^Wcover car
3)Don't get speeding tickets
Re:Microwave Pizza boxes make rotten antennas. (Score:2, Funny)
100mW EIRP limit in the UK (Score:2, Informative)
Re:100mW EIRP limit in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
Re:100mW EIRP limit in the UK (Score:4, Informative)
What this Cardboard does is the same as every antenne with gain does: It focus the beam into a specific direction, which will "amplify" the effective radiated power in this direction. And effective radiated power (EIRP) happens to be, whats regulated.
So this cardboard is bound to the same regulations as any directional antenna.
This doesn't increase the power (Score:2)
4W EIRP or 1 Watt actual output in US (Score:2)
Your rules in the UK must be more strict than ours in the US, we get to use 4 watts EIRP in the ISM band (more info [personaltelco.net]).
-jim
Second use (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Second use (Score:2, Funny)
Finally, a use for tinfoil hats ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally, a use for tinfoil hats ... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd rather have an unencrypted cello at 22mbps, but that's just me...
(so THAT's how burning karma smells!)
Re:Finally, a use for tinfoil hats ... (Score:2)
feedback (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:feedback (Score:2)
I doubt it would upset the standing wave ratio too much, but you'd have to ask a real RF engineer. At least, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as unplugging the antenna while the card is on. Has anyone out there actually fried a card doing that?
-jim
Let the price wars begin! (Score:4, Funny)
Beat that!
Re:Let the price wars begin! (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows you can't beat something thats "all that and a bag of potato chips!"
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Just goes to show you, those British folk can get away with anything!
Anyways... back to planning my quest for world dominaton using nothing more than a stick of gum and a paperclip.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
"Genuine Copper Bust of Abraham Lincoln -- only $9.99!"
And the lucky purchaser received a nice envelope containing a small cardboard stand -- and a penny.
They were *unsuccessfully* sued for fraud.
Caveat emptor!
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
And the lucky purchaser received a nice envelope containing a small cardboard stand -- and a penny.
But was it a shiny penny?
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Oh Crap (Score:3, Funny)
Damn that summary...
Cut it out, shape it into a parabola and snap it into the little stand. Then slip it over your
ARGGHHH, but I really have the urge to say 'HEAD'.
Damn you tinfoil hat posters, damn you to hell and back damn blast and double damn.
Great, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to sell these [addr.com] for a small retail store, and to this day I feel guilty. A local newstation did an expose where they found there was zero conductive material at all in these stickers.
Re:Great, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a big clue is located in the disclaimer at the bottom of the page:
"No Warranty. ALL SALES ARE FINAL.
Re:Great, but.. (Score:2)
http://home.pacbell.net/mtom168/internalantenna/ [pacbell.net]
Too Expensive (Score:2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1860241.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Ouch (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ouch (Score:2)
The increased load from the slashdotting was expertly focused onto their server which subsequently vaporized.
cardboard webserver (Score:2, Funny)
Re:cardboard webserver (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing they are lacking is "Made of recycle cardboard" to get in with the PC (Politically Correct not Personal Computer) crowd.
/.ed to oblivion (Score:5, Informative)
Well here's a press release on the product. I like the part about it "vaguely resembling a Klingon space ship".
Check it here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/6/prwebxml1350
Oh and of course the Google cache of the melted tritium.co.uk box: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:TSbW7tvLA14J:w
which Klingon ship? (Score:2)
Cheaper solutions exist (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cheaper solutions exist (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Cheaper solutions exist (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cheaper solutions exist (Score:2)
I'll wait until the Linux support is better.
Slashdotted already, so here's a picture (Score:4, Informative)
It looks to me as if 15 minutes with graph paper, scissors and glue (together with a bit of card stock and foil) would give you the same thing, without waiting on the snailmail, and without the $25 U.S.
By the way, the site I link to says 9.99 pounds, which should be a bit less than $25.
Re:Slashdotted already, so here's a picture (Score:2)
time is worth less than $100 per hour, but
*some* of us have better things to do than
build our own flatennae.
Re:Slashdotted already, so here's a picture (Score:2)
i laughed at this too (Score:5, Insightful)
then again, if you told me in the 1980s that people would pay for bottled water
or in the 1990s that people would pay $5.00 for a cup of coffee
i would have laughed at you too
the lesson is not to laugh, but to figure out your own amazing scheme
for while we laugh at the people who sell this stuff, they are laughing all the way to the bank
Re:i laughed at this too (Score:2)
That explains all the funny looks.
History of ideas, volume 27 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:History of ideas, volume 27 (Score:2)
Good idea
Getting an advert for your product posted to Slashdot.
Bad idea
Hosting the site on DSL in your mum's basement.
-Adam
Not an upgrade... (Score:5, Informative)
But again, I want to state this isn't an upgrade, your antenna isn't any more powerful, you're just taking power from the back and shooting it forward, so if you need omnidirectional signal this isn't for you. It can however, increase a dirctional link, but so can a pringles yagi directional, and that's still cheaper than this. Forget about this company and just make your own, it's simple, fun, and cheap, and gives you more of a choice in what material you want to use.
Re:Not an upgrade... (Score:5, Informative)
Say we take that energy from 180 degrees of the antenna's pattern and reflect it back along with the other 180 degrees. Now we've got twice the (effective) power, with half the coverage. This is EXACTLY what the EIRP rules are talking about.
Sorry, there's no getting around the rules just because you don't physically touch the radiating element...
Gain vs signal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gain vs signal (Score:2, Informative)
Uh, I do believe you meant to say "directional" there, and not "dipole". Dipole is a fairly simple and commonly used type of antenna. Roughly: two resonant lengths working 'against' each other, hence the name, "two poles" The word 'dipole' is not normally used to describe a radiation pattern. Dipoles are genreally considered 'omni-directional' radiators.
And you
Other cardboard products for under $25 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Other cardboard products for under $25 (Score:2)
"We've got some very interesting offerings in the cardboard division," Alberts said, gesturing toward a 200-foot-long aisle of appliance boxes. "Now, it used to be that, in order to get a refrigerator box, you had to search high and low, with no guarantee you'd ever strike gold. No longer. We sell our top-of-the-line, Kenmore 25.5 cubic foot double-door refrigerator boxes right here, only $4.79 each."
Re:Other cardboard products for under $25 (Score:2)
You might think so, but heat grates are renting for $24/sqft/mo, and even sidewalk and alley are as much as $20/sqft/mo so it isn't quite as cost effective as you might think.
The fridge box might be $25, but the sidewalk is $180/mo. Hope you've got a good job!
-Adam
Beware Mortal (Score:2, Funny)
Other Cardboard/Tinfoil Geek Project (OT) (Score:3, Funny)
Cantenna (Score:4, Informative)
Or you could... (Score:5, Interesting)
DIY (Score:2, Informative)
Cost:
Chicken wire $1 (from hardware store)
styrofoam as a base $0 (free from greengrocer)
Cable ties (to hold it together): $1
Gain should be at least 6dB
Plywood (Score:2)
2 to 3 times (Score:2)
2 to 3 times the range (one Flatenna)
So can I get 10 of them and extend the range to 20-30 times?
Been using it for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I think the Fractenna is cooler than the Flaten (Score:2)
Re:I think the Fractenna is cooler than the Flaten (Score:3, Informative)
Set the kind of post to "HTML Formatted", using the little menu in the lower right. Then wrap HTML markup around it:
<a href="http://www.foo.com/"> Text that you want highlighted </a>
Fractenna [fractenna.com] is actually a pretty interesting-looking link. Thanks.