From: black.hole.4.spam{at}gmail.com (Don Hills)

In article , Ellen K.
 wrote:
>Well, the laptop must have a PCMCIA card because I can certainly pick up
>wireless if an unsecured network is within range.

You might have option 3 - a Wifi adapter built right into the laptop. You'd
need to turn that one off (I'll leave it to someone who knows Windows XP to
tell you how, it's just a software setting) so that the laptop would use
the USB one.

>Suppose I got one of these USB transceivers and put it on top of my
>roof, I would just plug the other end into the USB port and voil…?
>(Laptop is XP Pro if that matters.)  Sure, I'd be willing to do that
>(well, I'd get someone else to go up on the roof), but since the laptop
>doesn't belong to me I don't think I should fool around with anything
>inside it.

You may not need to go to the roof. If you have a window in the right
place, you could put the antenna there. As you will have seen if you
Googled as I suggested, an effective dish antenna needn't be pretty, just
functional, and if it was indoors by a window you wouldn't even have to
worry about weatherproofing it.

Buy a wok, a USB wifi dongle and a long USB cable. You'll also need a sharp
craft knife, a hot-glue gun and a plastic cup or box.

Use a bright light such as the sun and a ruler, and find out where the
focal point of the dish is - where it focuses the light to a point. Aim the
dish at the light and stand the ruler up extending straight out from the
centre of the dish. It may not be a very sharp focus because the wok will
almost certainly not be the optimum shape, but just find the
"brightest" point and measure the distance from the wok surface
to the focus point. If the dish is too dull to reflect light, lay a strip
of double-sided sticky tape from one edge to the middle then press a strip
of aluminium foil, shiny side up, onto the double-sided tape.

Now cut something like a plastic box or plastic drink cup to just a little
less than the measured height and glue it to the centre of the wok. Glue or
tape the USB dongle across the end of the box or cup, aligned as suggested
in the various online articles. The aim is to put the tiny antenna in the
end of the dongle at the focal point of the dish as measured earlier.

Now plug it in and use a program such as Netstumbler (downloadable, Google
for it) which will show you the signal strength of the Wifi signal. Move
the antenna around to various locations and directions until you get the
strongest signal. Work out some way to hold the wok in that position and
you're done. If it's in a window, try taping the wok handle to the back of
a kitchen chair. Or a camera tripod. Or something.

--
Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
"New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager,
 preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
    -- Advertisement on the box for Microsoft Windows 2.11 for 286

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