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Grab Elusive Signals with the Wi-Fire Range Extender
Posted by Gina Trapani at 9:00 AM on November 16, 2007
When you're just out of range of your mum's neighbour's Wi-Fi signal this over the holiday season, you might want to have the Wi-Fire Range Extender USB signal booster on hand. We haven't tried it ourselves, but a poster at the Cool Tools web site says:
I was in a remote Alabama campground and their little access point was perhaps a few hundred feet away. With the internal Wi-Fi adaptor in my Thinkpad (it's Mac/PC compatible), no go. With the Wi-Fire aimed carefully I got a solid, workable signal. I just rotate it around until I get the best signal.The Wi-Fire Range Extender will set you back 80 bucks, and looks like a stocking stuffer that could make the geek in your life very happy.
Tags: gadgets | stuff we like | wi-fi | wifi | wireless
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
lafond66
Posted 5:34 PM 15/11/07
No it's not. Works fine.
lafond66
Roriniho
Posted 5:27 PM 15/11/07
Website is down.
Roriniho
Mugsy
Posted 6:23 PM 15/11/07
Or take a look at the Linksys WRE54G, which I have been using successfully for about a year. It is not, however, a USB-powered device.
Mugsy
jalopwill
Posted 10:49 PM 15/11/07
Seems to be a nice product, well except for the $80 that they want for it. When you can buy a directional antenna for much cheaper, you could even get a new wireless card w/ antenna for cheaper. Or get a dd-wrt compatible router for half that price and use it as a repeater, buy an antenna for it and still be cheaper. :-)
jalopwill
mconfoy
Posted 1:55 AM 16/11/07
make your own: [www.instructables.com]
a cheaper one, but larger, but perhaps better for that reason? [www.buy.com]
mconfoy
hauraki
Posted 4:45 AM 16/11/07
Or even use some 'cookware' to make your own!
[www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz]
hauraki
HeartBurnKid
Posted 11:27 AM 16/11/07
80 dollars? I'll take the wok-fi.
HeartBurnKid
skilled1
Posted 10:23 AM 16/11/07
my question is why you would be camping in alabama and NEED to use your computer?
skilled1
s7un7
Posted 10:19 PM 17/11/07
It would really help if companies started making their wireless cards with a higher transmit power. The average card is close to 100 mW. They go up to 400mW. With those cards the range is incredible. Look up Atheros and EnGenius. That would eliminate the need for devices like this and wireless repeaters in most cases.
s7un7
wickedcoolmatt
Posted 11:51 PM 15/11/07
Ok so my school has certain areas which are wireless. One of which is less than 1000 feet away. We want to connect to this wireless and distribute the WiFi between us in our suite. How can we do this? What do we need to buy?
P.S. The reason we're doing this is because our school has to LANs one for academics and one for students. Right now we are plugged in to the student LAN and it SUCKS, so we want to get the academics LAN from WiFi.
wickedcoolmatt
XeroGlitch
Posted 7:01 PM 15/11/07
Nice, i can use something like this that's USB powered.
XeroGlitch