spench.net

The following pages detail my WiFi adventures:

• WiFi Antennas
• Atmel at76c503a Wireless USB Adapter

This started with my desire to build a Woktenna.
Of course you can't very well put a PCMCIA wireless card at the focal point of a cooking wok!

So the alternative is using a USB WiFi adapter that can hang on the end of a USB extension cable and
introduce minimal analog signal loss and USB is digital!

Despite the fact is says "Linux compatible" on the box, it wasn't immediately possible to do what I wanted to do,
which is: monitor mode!
With monitor mode, I'd be able to point the woktenna around and pick up the beacon frames of distant APs.

I found two drivers available for this device:
one over at BerliOS,
and the other at SourceForge.

I have made the following WiFi antennas:

Cantenna

Made two, same design for both.
Gain is good: ~12dB.

Dr John Smith told me about these types of receivers, so I thought I'd build the bare-bones-basic one.

Unfortunately it's not possible to use it anywhere near urbanised areas due to the 50Hz mains interference 'hum' that swaps out mother nature.