Amplify Wi-Fi Single range with using of a Fork

Amplify Wi-Fi Single range With using of a Fork

Suppose: You're on the road, looking for a quick hit of some open Wi-Fi to send an email message or check your RSS reader. So you're scanning and scanning, picking up your laptop and walking all over the place while your Wi-Fi stumbler app keeps trying to pick up some new networks. You've just about given up hope when--success! You see an open network. Unfortunately, the signal is a bit too weak for you to sustain a connection.

These days, finding a decent Wi-Fi network usually isn't that hard, since it's practically mandatory for many places of business, but every now and then you'll find that you need a bit more juice to get it to work. A buddy of mine used to swear by a (rather unorthodox) trick with his 2007-era MacBook. The magnetic latch in the LCD bracket display also houses the MacBook's Wi-Fi antenna assembly. Grab a long, thin metal object (he used a fork) and stick it to the magnet in the upper left corner, and it'll function as an impromptu antenna extension, which could be just what you need to connect to an open network on the cusp of your range.

To test his claims, I collected a fork and a 2007-era MacBook, and used KisMAC to check the signal strength readings. Though attaching the fork did seem to cause the signal readings to fluctuate, its overall effect was to weaken the signal strength somewhat, meaning that it probably wouldn't improve your actual network connection. It did cause networks to appear in the scanning list that previously weren't registering, but I couldn't connect to them.