17 May 2006
Baby Food/Coffee Can Wifi Antenna
This looks like an interesting project. It’s a Wifi antenna made out of a simple cable and a baby food/coffee can. Construction involves punching a hole in the bottom side of the can and running the cable through. The end of the cable is attached in the center of the can. No details on how well it works, or if it works at all, but it looks simple enough to try without much risk. Let us know of your results and if this works better or as good as the famous Pringles can antenna.
Baby Food/Coffe Can Wifi Antenna.
Note: There’s only two pictures, and one more if you count the baby who presumably ate the can of food.
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Websearch for “coffee cantenna” will find a fair amount of documentation on this, including simple calculators to help determine proper length and location of the wire and suggested sources for the fittings. Upside: It’s VERY easy to build, and it works surprisingly well — and just as important as the improved signal strength, it rejects off-axis radio noise very well, which also helps the S/N ratio and thus the effectiveness. Downside: Unlike the traditional Yagi-based Pringles version, it’s producing a polarized signal, which means its orientation relative to the other antenna may matter.
I’ve successfully used mine to connect from building to building, or from one end of a hotel to another, even when the other end of the connection was still using a standard antenna. Using directional antennas on both ends will further boost performance.