I’m still playing around with my Airport Express (AEx) at home.

The signal strength LED blinks yellow (medium) most of the time, rather than glowing green as I’d prefer.
The AEx is in the Den (our TV/Stereo media room), down a floor and at the other end of the house from my G4 Mac in the office. The AEx has an internal antenna, so without cutting it open to hack on a bigger antenna, I’m pretty much stuck with leaving it alone. But I can increase its received signal strength by focusing the transmitted power into a narrower, more concentrated beam, rather than using the omni-directional pattern of the built-in G4 antenna.

Basically this means I need to build or buy a tighter beam anternna (with a 2 foot long or so lead) and connect it to the antenna connector on the Airport Extreme card within the G4.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, its makes sense to look at what others have already done – there has been an evolution beyond the old Pringles “Cantenna” technology. And considering I’ve worked in CATV/TVRO technology and around the edges of antenna tech before I gave it up and came to web development, I have some old N connectors and such stashed away from those old days (somewhere!).

Here are some reference links for later use:

• Greg Rehm’s Homebrew Antenna Shootout
• How To Build A Tin Can Waveguide WiFi Antenna for 802.11(b or g) Wireless Networks or other 2.4GHz Applications
• Build a Pringles Can Yagi 12dB gain
• A Yuban Can Tenna – claimed 16dB gain
• NoCat.net – community supported 802.11b wireless network in Sonoma County, CA (lots of Links)
• AirShare.org – a wireless community
• Seattle Wireless Net (a community project)
• QSL – Ham site with a number of designs & Tips
• Wireless LAN resources for Linux (Huge list o’links)