Did you outfit your home with a wireless router only to discover that its signal reaches computers in just half of the house? You don’t need to shell out for a more expensive router. You just need a disposable $2 cookie sheet, which you can find at any supermarket. Curve it into a bowl shape—so it looks like a satellite TV dish—place it behind the router and point it in the direction where you want to send the signal. Believe it or not, the signal will get an instant boost in that direction. Why? Curved metal focuses the router’s energy in one direction—toward the other end of the house—rather than letting it dissipate its strength in a full circle, explains says Chriss Scherer, C.P.B.E. C.B.N.T., broadcast engineer and editor of Radio Magazine.
[photo: dougwoods]
