Thread: How To Increase Your Wireless Signal By 50%

Welcome to whofarted's tutorial on how to increase your wireless signal by 50%... (No refunds)

What you need:

A wireless USB dongle (Any make is fine)...
A pair of scissors...
A metal sieve...

Lets get started...

If you have a metal sieve already at home, It should look like this...


(If you haven't left the house for a long time, this is what a sieve looks like)

Get your scissors and in the middle of the sieve cut out the size of your USB wireless dongle's male connection. Make sure it is a perfect fit, Once you have done that and completely finished, Get your sieve and wireless USB dongle and take it to your PC, Plug in your wireless USB into your PC by fitting it half way in the sieve and check the wireless signal on your PC, You will see the signal has increased a lot...

This horrible monstrosity that you're now making will most likely not fit anywhere so get a USB extension wire, stick it in the compootah and plug it into your newly acquired space station.



Remember that scissors can be very sharp and can make bad people go away sometimes so be carefull...

Here is some lies proof:





After you have finished, It will end up looking like this...



TADAAAH!

(One I made earlier by butchering a lamp and being a genius with a glue gun)

Updated 11/11/09

Welcome to whofarted's PROPER tutorial on how to increase your wireless signal by 50% using tomato FW!


Serious shit now chaps, no stupid jokes this round!


Tomato Firmware

Tomato is a small, lean and simple replacement firmware for Linksys' WRT54G/GL/GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom-based routers. It features a new easy to use GUI, a new bandwidth usage monitor, more advanced QOS and access restrictions, enables new wireless features such as WDS and wireless client modes, raises the limits on maximum connections for P2P, allows you to run your custom scripts or telnet/ssh in and do all sorts of things like re-program the SES/AOSS button, adds wireless site survey to see your wifi neighbors, and more.

Step 1: Check if your router's supported





Before you go upgrading your firmware willy-nilly, be sure to check Tomato's list of supported devices. The router I'll be using is the same router in the above picture. Several of the Linksys WRT54G series routers are supported, but they aren't all, so make sure you check your model number. In addition to the pervasive Linksys router, Tomato will also install on some Buffalo, ASUS, and Microsoft routers.

Step 2: Upgrading your FW to tomato

So you've either ensured that you're current router is supported or you've ordered a new cheap one off the internet? Then it's time to upgrade that router to Tomato. First, go download the latest Tomato firmware. You'll download a 7zip archive, so use your favourite unarchiver, and extract the contents to an easy-to-find folder on your desktop.

Now you'll need to log into your current router to upgrade. This process may vary slightly depending on what router you're using and the firmware it's running, but for the most part it's very simple. Below I'll describe the simple update process from DD-WRT to Tomato (which is virtually the same as it would be for any other router with one small difference).
First, point your browser to 192.168.1.1/, the default admin page for your router. If your router has a username/password set, you'll need to enter it to continue. Next you need to navigate to the firmware upgrade section of your router's admin panel. In both DD-WRT and the default Linksys firmware, you'll click the Administration tab followed by the Firmware Upgrade tab. Now just click the Browse button and direct your router to the appropriate firmware file for your router in the folder you unzipped earlier.



See the README file included in the Tomato folder to determine which version you'll need to choose at this point. If you're using the same WRT54GL router as I am, pick the file named WRT54G_WRT54GL.bin. Now just click the upgrade button and wait. Be sure not to turn off your router during this upgrade.



When it's finished, you're ready to start using Tomato. (Pretty simple, right?) Point your browser back to 192.168.1.1/ and log with "admin" (without quotes) as both your username and password. If you upgraded from DD-WRT, this may not be working for you. If the login isn't working off the bat, you've got one more thing to do: Perform a hard reset on your router. To do so, just find the little Reset button on the back of your router, then press and hold it for a few seconds. When your router comes back online, the "admin" username and password should work.

Step 3: Boost you WI-FI



There's a lot you can do now that you're running Tomato on your router, but let's go straight to one of the sexiest tweaks supported by Tomato: Wi-Fi signal boosting. Just click on Advanced -> Wireless in the Tomato sidebar and find the entry labelled Transmit Power. The default transmit power is 42mW, but it's capable of transmitting at up to 251mW.
Tomato is a little low on documentation on this subject (okay, so it's low on documentation all-around), but the DD-WRT documentation suggests that an increase of up to 70mW would be "suitable for most users." A boost much above that could cause heat issues and considerably decrease the life of your router.
I can't attest to the certainty of damage beyond what the DD-WRT documentation says, but here is what I can tell you: I've been running my router with DD-WRT for over a year transmitting at 70mW, haven't seen any hiccups in performance and so far have seen no smoke. Even better, my Wi-Fi signal easily reaches to every corner of my apartment.

Step 4: Track Your Bandwidth Usage, Set Quality of Service Rules, and More

From this point on, if there's something you want to do with your router, chances are Tomato can do it for you. In particular the bandwidth logging is both attractive and handy, allowing you to track bandwidth usage in real-time, over the last 24 hours, or with daily, weekly, or monthly reports.



Usually you will need to set up your own quality of Service rules on your DD-WRT router to ensure you don't drop Skype calls, lag on Xbox Live, and generally get your bandwidth when and where you need it. Tomato does all the same while providing even more granular control over how much bandwidth goes where... and, like the bandwidth reports, it graphs it all.



If you've assigned a domain name to your home server (like whofarted-lh.homeip.net), Tomato can send alerts to the service if you've got a dynamic IP address so that the domain will always point to your computer—even if your external IP address changes.
For a few other worthwhile uses, check out these videos for setting up Tomato's Access Restriction rules (allows you to set up rules to block browsing of certain topics at certain times, for example), using the Bandwidth Monitor, and putting your router into Wireless Client mode.
As I said above, documentation on Tomato is slim, but this Tomato wiki is a good place to start if you want to figure out a feature.

Step 5: So Which Is Better, Tomato or DD-WRT?

After reading this, you may have noticed that Tomato shares a lot of features with DD-WRT; if you did, you're probably wondering which is better. Honestly, the two firmwares are both excellent—you won't go wrong running either. DD-WRT has a slightly more robust feature set and a bit more polish in the layout of the admin, but most features that you'll find in DD-WRT that are not in Tomato are features most home users will never use. Both do Quality of Service, though Tomato seems to do it a bit better; both can boost your Wi-Fi signal; and both will transform your router into something much better than it was before you started. At the moment I prefer Tomato for the simplicity of its layout, the excellent bandwidth monitoring tools, and of course, its attractive charts.

Another quality guide


from whofarted

HAHAHAHAHA that made me laugh so hard, I might try this, but how does it actually improve the wireless signal? I wants facts and statistics please! :P

Bigger signal receiving area. Think how you cable satellite dish works or if your british - sky.

I am not a qualified meteorologist so I can't comment or speculate on the phenomenon that is known as a USB dongle stuck through a metal sieve.

YouTube - hack wifi

here is a video of that method.

Some people require help cutting a hole in a sieve so watch the above video if you have trouble operating your hands.

Interesting..
Also if you have DD-WRT you can go to Wireless > Advanced settings in the router page and choose a higher TX power. Don't put it too high now xD.
My default is 70, the max is 251.. putting it higher will be noticeable but too high can damage and brick the router..
Both of these methods will give you a near-perfect wireless connection.

Actually you're quite right...hehe I have that planned for the update.

I'll be looking like an idiot if i tried that ! imagine !

+1 for humour , always appreciated ! keep'em coming those wittingly knit little jokes of yours :D

Actually its going to turn fairly serious by Tuesday when I get round to it. This was only a taster the real deal something that's practical will turn up next week.