cantenna - Dish network dish ?

probably a foolish question.
would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a cantenna
for wireless b or g ?

Of course it will. they showed some homemade antennas in TechTV using old
dishes about three weeks ago. It achieved impressive results.

"Frank Dowling" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
> probably a foolish question.
> would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a
cantenna
> for wireless b or g ?

Frank Dowling <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> probably a foolish question.
> would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a cantenna
> for wireless b or g ?

Odd that you should ask that. I'm going to put a D-Link USB DWL-122 onto a
Dish-Dish tonight. Maybe I'll take pictures.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5

On Wed, 05 May 2004 16:35:03 -0700, Frank Dowling wrote:

> probably a foolish question.
> would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a cantenna
> for wireless b or g ?

First a couple of observations:

"Cantenna" is the name of two distinct entities: Cantenna is the brand
name of a commercial product which sells for about twenty bucks. It is a
waveguide antenna which is designed for WiFi use.

"Cantenna" is also a generic name for homemade WiFi antennas of various RF
design specifications, which incorporate a metalic tin can, or other
cylindrical shaped packaging materials. The actual materials used in
these homemade designs have been limitted only by the user's ingenuity,
and have included Snack Chip cans, (pringles being the perrenial favorite),
Coffee cans, beef stew, etc.

Much ado has been made of the use of DSS type satellite dishes for WiFi
use. They can be made to work, but suffer from inherent drawbacks, like
wind loading factors, poor driver to reflector coupling, etc.

my personal feeling is that if a user wish to have a high gain, highly
directional antenna, they can be purchased for very affordable prices, and
the better designs don't suffer from the drawbacks mentioned.

The primnary difficulty for the do-it-yourselfer, when using these DSS
dishes is proper illumination of the dish, and RF coupling, from the
driven element onto the reflector. The best designs I've seen, which are
to be had from a judicious Googling, involve the "BiQuad" driver design.
If you're NOT going to be using a BiQuad driver, I wouldn't bother wasting
my time in this endeavor.



vg

Would ordinary co-axial cable work ?
Or should one use other types of cables ?
how would reception compare to a "cantenna" ?


(E-Mail Removed) wrote in message news:<c7c5qo$7fj$(E-Mail Removed)>...
> Frank Dowling <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > probably a foolish question.
> > would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a cantenna
> > for wireless b or g ?
>
> Odd that you should ask that. I'm going to put a D-Link USB DWL-122 onto a
> Dish-Dish tonight. Maybe I'll take pictures.

Frank Dowling wrote:

> Would ordinary co-axial cable work ?
> Or should one use other types of cables ?
> how would reception compare to a "cantenna" ?

I just don't get it. 2.4GHz antennas are so cheap and so well made, why
dick around with making your own? At the moment I have a 9dbi panel
antenna (about 4-5 inches in each direction, about 1 inch thick) out on
my porch connecting to an access point omni about a quarter mile away. I
have excellent signal strength and link quality. Do you know how cheap
these antennas are? If my time is worth $2/hr, then buying these panel
antennas is a really good deal.

Rôgêr ,

points well taken.
just that I've got a handy Dish sitting on a tripod.
what commercial antenna do you recommend ?
also some "experts" contend that a home made antenna often will
have better recepton than a commercial product.
also what type of access point are you receiving ? how much
strength is it putting out- i.e a commercial unit or just run of the
mill wireless router .


thanks
Valentín Guillén <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed) >...
> On Wed, 05 May 2004 16:35:03 -0700, Frank Dowling wrote:
>
> > probably a foolish question.
> > would a regular Dish network or Direct TV satellite dish work as a cantenna
> > for wireless b or g ?
>
> First a couple of observations:
>
> "Cantenna" is the name of two distinct entities: Cantenna is the brand
> name of a commercial product which sells for about twenty bucks. It is a
> waveguide antenna which is designed for WiFi use.
>
> "Cantenna" is also a generic name for homemade WiFi antennas of various RF
> design specifications, which incorporate a metalic tin can, or other
> cylindrical shaped packaging materials. The actual materials used in
> these homemade designs have been limitted only by the user's ingenuity,
> and have included Snack Chip cans, (pringles being the perrenial favorite),
> Coffee cans, beef stew, etc.
>
> Much ado has been made of the use of DSS type satellite dishes for WiFi
> use. They can be made to work, but suffer from inherent drawbacks, like
> wind loading factors, poor driver to reflector coupling, etc.
>
> my personal feeling is that if a user wish to have a high gain, highly
> directional antenna, they can be purchased for very affordable prices, and
> the better designs don't suffer from the drawbacks mentioned.
>
> The primnary difficulty for the do-it-yourselfer, when using these DSS
> dishes is proper illumination of the dish, and RF coupling, from the
> driven element onto the reflector. The best designs I've seen, which are
> to be had from a judicious Googling, involve the "BiQuad" driver design.
> If you're NOT going to be using a BiQuad driver, I wouldn't bother wasting
> my time in this endeavor.
>
>
>
> vg

Taking a moment's reflection, Valentín Guillén mused:
|
| my personal feeling is that if a user wish to have a high gain, highly
| directional antenna, they can be purchased for very affordable prices, and
| the better designs don't suffer from the drawbacks mentioned.

Yeah, but the commercial stuff isn't as trick as the do-it-yourselfer
stuff. ;-)

Frank Dowling wrote: R&ocirc;g&ecirc;r ,

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; points well taken.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; just that I've got a handy Dish sitting on a tripod.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; what commercial antenna do you recommend ?


There are a whole slew of different antenna types which are available, depending upon your needs.&nbsp;&nbsp; Directional types are good for higher gain needs, but have the disadvantage of needing precise aiming.&nbsp; Omnis are good for wide-area coverage.&nbsp; Flat panels are fairly directional, but have wider propagation&nbsp; characteristics. &nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; also some "experts" contend that a home made antenna often will
have better recepton than a commercial product.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; also what type of access point are you receiving ?


802.11b *cards* should connect with any brand of AP/router/etc. how much
strength is it putting out- i.e a commercial unit or just run of the
mill wireless router . Here are a couple of rinky-dink "dish-conversion" links, by people who didn't know better:

http://www5.cs.cornell.edu/~eckstrom/802.11a/primestar/
http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/P...Primestar.html

Here's a good shot from a page of a guy who knows what he's doing:

from this good "BiQuad" conversion page:&nbsp; http://www.trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm

And here's another shot from another European dish conversion page:&nbsp;
from here:&nbsp; http://www.weijand.nl/wifi/

Here's the commercial Cantenna from this page:&nbsp; http://www.cantenna.com


I'm partial to the Semi-Parabolic grid antennas, partially because of their extremely high gain characteristics, like this one:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; from this website:&nbsp;&nbsp; http://www.wirelessinteractive.com

I can connect to many wifi spots from my home with one of these, and some of those are miles away.&nbsp;&nbsp; I connect to a wide variety of brands with one of these!

And you're right......Many homemade antennas CAN often be very much better than commercial antennas, but invariably, these homemade jobs are constructed and designed by RF engineers, and they put a LOT of time and effort into them.&nbsp;&nbsp; Don't be fooled!
&nbsp;

Regards,

vg
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

On Thu, 06 May 2004 14:06:56 -0600, in alt.internet.wireless , Valentin
Guillen <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

><!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
><html>
>Frank Dowling wrote:
><blockquote TYPE=CITE>R&ocirc;g&ecirc;r ,

.... and similar garbage.

Don't post HTML to newsgroups, and especially don't post broken html to
them. Set your newsreader to post in plain text only.

--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.angelfire.com/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc.html>


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