This Made Me Laugh…
I just found this video by accident and I had to post it. As a follow up to our popular post on How To Boost Your 3G Mobile Broadband Signal this has got to be the cheapest (probably free for most people!) mobile broadband signal booster you can find. Now you can forget about building a diy 3G antenna or buying a high gain external aerial for your dongle, this is a completely home-grown version that everyone should be able to try out.
I don’t want to say any more but watch the short video. It really seems to work, watch the right hand side of the graph. It made me laugh anyway! Oh, and if anybody tries this and has any success, please let me know in the comments section. Enjoy!
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[...] only commonly available kitchen equipment this guy demonstrates the amazing powers of an ordinary metal pan to boost the 3G reception of his USB modem. It really seems to work, check the right hand side of the graph in the [...]
Well the problem is, you have to carry around the friggin’ sauce pan with you on the go. Not quite ‘mobile’ is it?
maybe this could start a new fashion trend
[...] The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster | The Mobile Broadband Blog (tags: antenna aerial 3g usb broadband modem diy) [...]
I have done something related with a cellphone and the metal frame of a school bus. You can Add 2-3 bars easily by increasing the size of the antenna.
This would be ideal for camping, always have some pots or pans when I go camping…
Well you can always wear the pan on your head as a form of tin foil protection when you’re on the go. Very portable.
But you need the tinfoil protection the most when you go on the internet! Clearly you would need 2 pots/pans
I just tried this and it seemed to work very well.
I have the exact same model of broadband dongle as the guy in the video (a Huawei E220) and usually get very poor download speeds in my room (I have lousy line-of-sight to the nearby mobile towers).
I put the dongle in a steel mixing bowl near my computer and watched a couple of YouTube vids. Normally I have to put the vid on pause and wait for it to download before I can watch it – this time it just played as if I had a real broadband connection.
Seems to be very good so far. I will buy a mixing bowl just for this and see if the speed improvement keeps up.
That’s awesome David, thanks for the field report, maybe I should get into the mixing bowl business before this blows up!
What happens if you turn on the heat?
Worked for me great,with my cellphone. went from 1 to 4 bars in my kitchen, which is an awful place to try to place a call. Sweeet!
As already said, good to know for when you’re camping. Usually have a pan, never can get a signal…
Thanks Jerramy, how are you making it work with a phone?
Put your phone in the saucepan
I loved the guy’s Finnish accent and the euroshopper tuna fish can on the table
)
this is awesome cool. I thought this is a joke. I hope this is worth a try.
[...] Instalacja jest prosta: wydrukowa?, wycina? i przymocowa?. Lekarstwem na powolny transfer mog? te? by? inne naczynia kuchenne Je?li teraz zastanawiasz si?, czy zabra? ?onie jedyn? patelni? i wykorzysta? j? do zwi?kszenia zasi?gu sieci Wi-Fi — witaj w klubie! Jajecznica, schabowy i nale?niki, ?egnajcie!
via /. [...]
Hey folks,
believe an Italian engineer : that is not the right way to cook a USB dongle
anyway my papa, who is in a chalet on the Alps with poor signal, will try this trick today ….
How timely!
I live in Thailand and was visiting my girlfriend’s house outside of Bangkok for New Year’s Eve. She has broadband scheduled to be installed next week–but for now, the only internet available is EDGE.
I tried connecting my laptop to the internet by EDGE and it was CRAWLING. I had seen you post earlier in the day, asked her to bring a pan from the kitchen and put my mobile phone into it (much to the amusement of her entire family) and damned if it didn’t immediately speed up the connection.
Who woulda thunk it!
[...] might pay off to dig into their cookware. At the least, it’s an instant conversation starter. The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster [The Mobile Broadband Blog via [...]
Awesome – I see a new Rap Singer fad coming. Hanging a double-boiler pot on your neck so that your ATT/iPhone gets decent speed !
I’m not sure this proves anything to do with 3g connection improvement at all. I have the same modem as in the video and the connection speed you’re showing is only at about 50-70 kbps. This says to me that the modem is only connected at GPRS (2g) speeds and is at a different frequency to 3g connections. I have trouble with my modem connecting but only at 3g speeds (2g and hsdpa are fine) and I would like to see a video demonstrating a connection improvement at 3g frequency. I know that the sotware in the video has the cabability to totally turn off 2g and 3g connections independently so this should not be hard to demonstrate. The software in the video also shows you what connection type is presently being used but the video conveniently doesn’t show that side of the screen.
Tony, my modem was constantly connected to either UMTS or HSDPA (3G) and not GPRS (2G) when I tried this. I have the same model of modem and the software is much the same (except it has Virgin Australia branding and not the branding of whatever this guy’s network is).
Tony, it’s not kb/s but KB/s with a big B, mean byte. So, if it’s 60KB/s = 60X8 = 480kb/s. Almost 0.5 Mb/s. And I believe no GPRS connection can do such thing.
Neat! Add some garlic and onions while your at it.
By the way, you could also try wrapping your fingers(at least two) around the modem and then wait for a couple of seconds. Your body will serve as a big hunk of fleshy antenna, thus (hopefully) improving the signal. It ain’t guaranteed to work, but in desperate moments what do we have to lose, eh?
I am in the US and have a Sierra Wireless USB Connect 881U on the dreaded AT&T network. I tried this here and my signal went down from -86dBm to -100dBm. I wonder if the type of metal affects it. I tried different configurations, with the pot on the side, the modem laying down or standing up and I was not able to create a significant increase in reception. I’m going to try with different pots and see if that makes a difference. I also have an old DirecTV dish (somewhere!), in which I’ll try positioning the modem at the end of the LNB and aim the dish towards the tower. Can’t hurt!!
Yes this is pretty cool, any parabolic shape will boost radiowave reception is also works if you put it behind a router to reflect the signal in the direction you want it.
I have to try this! You all are so funny…! Thanks for making me laugh out loud!!
[...] might pay off to dig into their cookware. At the least, it’s an instant conversation starter. The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster [The Mobile Broadband Blog via [...]
LOL — I love it! He’s turning the omni antenna into a boosted directional antenna — we should be able to get the same kind of boost by putting it on a metal platter or a steel desk.
Well I’m not sure how I feel about carrying a sauce pan around with me. I do have horrible service though in my house and I’ve been looking at a product called zBoost from Wi-Ex. Does anyone have this product or have any input because from reviews I’ve read it seems to improve signal a lot.
I remember seeing an article like this many years ago where a guy mounted a usb dongle horizontally in a colander and pointed it around his neighborhood to get a wifi signal.
Also, the second page of this article has a focal point calculator that you can use to maximize your wok-fu.
http://urbanwireless.info/index.php/antennas/dish-with-usb-feed
[...] might pay off to dig into their cookware. At the least, it’s an instant conversation starter. The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster [The Mobile Broadband Blog via [...]
This is your dongle…
This is your dongle on broadband…
Any questions?
[...] – wait! you forgot the frying pan! (?) [...]
[...] the rest here: The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster | The … [...]
Hi,
I used aluminium paper to do the same
.. Im interested in that particular SW.. what r U using and is it a free software?
springphul
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lol, so now besides my 17″ vaio i have to carry a 9″ pot to have good reception ? ^^
[...] The Mobile Broadband Blog. [...]
Last time we went camping we kept loosing connection in the field when trying to collect our emails. Now I know what to do. You may have saved my family life in conjunction with my photography business!
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[...] The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster | The Mobile Broadband Blog – this has got to be the cheapest (probably free for most people!) mobile broadband signal booster you can find. [...]
[...] pay off to dig into their cookware. At the least, it’s an instant conversation starter. The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster [The Mobile Broadband Blog via [...]
Nice one
) We collected some of these here: http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/articles/boost-your-mobile-broadband-speed-diy
I wonder if sticking my dongle onto an LNB on a satellite dish will work..?..!
Oh that’s hilarious! I think mobile broadband’s brilliant because it’s just so easy and convenient, but I can’t imagine the developers thinking “I wonder what would happen if…” and reaching the conclusion SAUCEPAN.
Sarah