Pay attention to the image while I tell you the story. Today I started to watch a video of a guy who made a Yagi type wifi antenna.
As most of you already know, I work from mobile data since there is no cable internet access in the area where I live and satellite is extremely expensive to have a maximum of only 4 Mb/s. So I decided to try it like he did, a scale version and depending on the results I got to think about whether to make it big or not.
In the version he makes, he uses coaxial cable and explains how to connect it to a Wifi Router, although at home we only have one and to use it you have to modify certain internal parameters to turn it into a signal repeater, so it is not an option for me to configure. the Router not knowing if the antenna would work or not.
That's why I decided to use the old phone that I use to experiment and do projects. The truth is that it is not something difficult, although I still do not recommend doing it if you are not sure of what you are doing or at least I do not recommend doing it with something that you are not willing to damage.
Once I uncovered the phone, my task was to look for the inputs of the antennas of the Wi-Fi system. It's easy to identify, it's usually these little pins that aren't connected to anything and usually make contact with the phone case. At least that's the way it is on older phones like this, I'm guessing newer phones will have other types of connectors, but it's basically the same logic.
If we see, I was lucky and the plate clearly says Wifi and GSM. One obviously is the connection of the Wifi antenna and the GSM refers to the signal antenna of the telephone network, in this case it does not have a Chip, although a specific antenna for GSM could also be made and thus have more bars of signal, which could be useful if you live in a very remote place. The detail would be that the cell phone should be fixed in one place along with the antenna, receiving a signal and perhaps sharing data... I don't know, that for other posts, for now we will focus on Wifi.
Being a test, I am not going to complicate my life too much by soldering cables, but I am going to take advantage of a small hole in the connector and there I am going to wind the ends of the cables. To differentiate it I am going to place red and black, although the order in which you place it does not make a big difference. I also took advantage of the fact that I had a small... I don't know what it's called, although I know they put it in the signal cables to avoid interference and I added it too. It is simply to pass the cables inside and that's it.
I already had the connections to the telephone made, now all that remains is to do the antenna.
I am going to do this, which was what the subject did in his video, there he also explains where the measurements appear from, that is, what are the formulas to design the Yagi antenna, something very interesting because knowing the frequency at which we want connect, we can use the same system for a TV antenna, mobile signal or as in this case, Wifi.
Something that also explains is that this antenna only receives the signal from the site it is pointing to, so yes, it would be a disadvantage in the case of using it as a TV antenna.
Regarding the construction, I am not going to tell you the long story because I already shared the video about it and it is not that I am an expert in the matter. Although I do advise you to check the continuity of the connections before applying the last layer of hot silicone.
I want you to notice this, on the left we have a screenshot of the networks that appear on my phone (TCL 20se) and only one network called "Private Network" appears with a single signal bar. And on the right we have the old phone with the antenna connected showing not only the same network with 2 lines, but also a second network.
So yes, without a doubt the experiment worked and I plan to do it big soon 😎
