Bi-Quad 3G Intarwebs

I only have 3G Internet connectivity at my place. The tower is a little over 3 kilometers away in the bottom of a valley(!?). There are some low hills and a smattering of trees obscuring line of site. It goes without saying the the 3G coverage is variable and only a small number of handsets get reception at our place (so-called Telstra "blue tick phones").

So off to a mates shed I go for a little hardware hacking. The goal is to build a bi-quad antenna for Telstra's 3G spectrum.

Half an hour or so of bending metal, a little soldering, a little glue and screwing a few nuts onto bolts and she's done:

Another half an hour up a ladder, bolting it on, feeding wires and pointing it in the general direction of Geeveston:

and the result is significantly better:

As Tony Abbott has taken the NBN off us, this is going to have to do us for a while. At least construction of the satellite groundstation at Geeveston has commenced.