Desperate Times Call For… Engineering

As you may remember from my last entry, my dorm was struck by lightning about 3 weeks ago. Although things could be worse, as in my computer could have blown up or the whole housing establishment could have caught fire, instead we merely lost internet. However, this is not to be taken lightly. In fact, for someone like me in an age like this, internet is like a faithful sidekick – it’s always there and no matter how bad the going gets, the trusty steed is still there chuggin' along with you, except without internet, I feel I’ve lost my right hand man.

This is the first of a two part entry I will be putting together this week. I’ll be sharing my experience on coping with internet loss, and my journey to getting it back!

This is no Epic Narrative akin to Lord of the Rings or Star Wars etc, but it’s a story worth telling. The problem: I have no internet. The solution: DIY Wireless Range Extender, AKA, the Cantenna!

A Cantenna, for lack of a better term, is a combination of a Can and an Antenna. Basically, you can use a can and some crafty techniques to build yourself a cheap directional waveguide antenna for long range Wi-Fi.

Here’s what you need:
• A Can
• N Type Female Chassis connector
• 2”+ of #12 copper wire
• Nuts/Bolts
• A Desperate need for internet or otherwise curious as to how antennas work
• Solder/Soldering gun


This list will cost you about $10+, give or take a few bucks. Since I’ve never done this before, I ended up buying a bunch of stuff I didn’t need. Oops!

I actually already had the can of soup, soldering gun, and keyboard

I’ll be taking most of that back within the next week! Construction starts ASAP, as soon as I can finish a couple of other projects I’m working on!

It was harder than you think it would be to find all of this though, especially without internet. I had to use the good ol’ cell phone and call a dozen people before I found all that I needed. There are several stores not worth mentioning that didn’t have anything I needed, but the one store that did have everything was Tanner’s Electronics in Fort Worth… Thank you Tanner!

Despite my endless search for all my materials, there is still a diamond in the rough to be found here. A thin, modest and cute looking cashier with short light hair rang me up at Home Depot. She drew this on my receipt

She said "you have very pretty eyes" :) that made my day! It was pretty obvious I was flustered as I lost my stuff I bought 15 seconds ago and had to ask where I put them. She smiled and laughed as she pointed at them sitting on the checkout counter. In a nervous dash to end my embarrassment, I laughed and admitted to my social ineptitude, and briskly walked out the door, also forgetting where I parked. Nerdyness always gets the best of me in every situation…

End of part I

Expect the Unexpected

Here’s something you hear all the time but don’t ever expect it to happen to you. Well.. at least I wasn’t expecting it to happen

My dorm was struck by lightning

That’s 1.21 GIGAWATTS of electricity that just hit us.

Interestingly enough, we didn’t experience a fire or power outage, but rather, a huge power surge and many people crying (including myself) that we no longer have internet service. Some of the networking hardware got fried and knocked out both buildings. What’s also interesting is that my computer tower started buzzing when the lightning hit, and my desktop told me I just experienced a power surge… Interesting how it knows when it had a power surge. Beyond that nothing happened, except my Network Interface Card (NIC) no longer works… as in it no longer appears in my Device Manager.. it just vanished. The lights are still on and it’s integrated to the mother board of my tower but… it seems only the NIC card doesn’t function anymore. Thank goodness my hard drives didn’t fry like some other poor unfortunate souls.

It seems if you weren’t using a surge protector, your stuff got zapped. Many people are moaning about the Red Ring of Death on their Xboxes and entire hard drives getting burnt up. I suppose the reason my NIC card was cooked was because that was not on a surge protector, it was simply plugged straight into the wall. A CAT5 ethernet cable is capable of carrying a gigabit of data over 100 meters, providing me with endless youtube videos, and now apparently burning up my network card. Oh ethernet, how I love thee.

On a side note that got me thinking… everyone is in an energy crisis, but the answer to our problems just zapped my NIC card. Wind turbines, hydro electricity, solar power, geothermal, and our newest, lightning electricity. Come on, nature has zapped us with this stuff since day one and no one has tried to harness it? Actually Doc Brown tried… and he went Back to the Future with it. That’s saying something.

Source

Where’s an engineer when you need one..?