James, As Stu and Sean wrote, you'll need to use a connector to get good results, but since you're keeping the wires extremely short you ought to get some sort of crude indication that the antenna is working if you hook up the antenna correctly.
Sounds to me like you're only connecting half your circuit! You need to connect both the center conductor and the shield to your antenna to get any voltage in the antenna. Try connecting the outer shell of the radio's connector to bare metal on the can (with a _very_ short wire to complete the ground side of the circuit. I hope this helps! Greg DesBrisay On Tue, 2003-11-11 at 10:58, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi, > > I am trying to build an antenna by following the directions on > http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html . I am using a > Linksys WUSB11 v2.5 (the one with an MMCX connector on it). The can I am > using has a diameter of 3.94 in, and the length is between 5.5 - 6.0 > inches. Before I spend $20 on an N connector/pigtail and more for > shipping, I want to make sure the thing works. > > I drilled a small hole 1.75 in from the bottom. I found some thick copper > wire, and stripped the covering off of the last 1.21" part. I cut the > wire to about 2" length. Next, I set up my D-Link DI-614+ router in the > same room. When I remove the default Linksys antenna, I get a very poor > signal-to-noise ratio on Netstumbler (as predicted). Attaching the > Linksys antenna greatly improves this (as predicted). Next, I had a > friend take one end of the copper wire and stick it into the internal MMCX > connector on the Linksys. I held the other end 1.21" into the can. The > effect of all this is that I had the copper wire sticking into the can > exactly as the web site at Turnpoint describes. The can was pointed > directly at the router - no more than 5 feet. The SNR I measured was not > much better than with no antenna at all. No amount of wiggling, etc. of > the copper wire could rectify this. Obviously if this thing can be made > to work I will spend the money on the pigtail/N connector, but I will feel > very stupid if I spend $30 on these two things if the entire setup doesn't > work. > > My questions are: > > 1. The inside of the can is coated with some kind of white lining - could > this be the problem? Scratching this off with my key reveals a silver > metallic can (predictably). > > 2. The length of copper wire outside the can which extends to the MMCX > connector is only about 1". This shouldn't make any difference - right? > Or is it required to use the N connector/pigtail before the setup will > even begin to work? > > 3. Are the Super Cantennas at www.cantenna.com any good? Are they worth > the extra money when (theoritically) you can build one out of the garbage? > > 4. Any other ideas on why this isn't working? I've measured things like > 10 times and tried to get a decent signal numerous times - all without > good results. > > My intent (once I get the thing to work with an AP in the same room) is to > reach an AP across the street. I don't think I need to amplify the signal > much, because the builtin Linksys antenna seems to pick up a trace signal > every few minutes. And I don't need full 11 MBPS bandwidth - just 1 or 2. > > Thank you! > > Best Regards, > > James Johnston > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> > [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
