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I unironically do something similar to this. In my area, the only options are a dogshit local WISP, Starlink/other satellite, or (where possible) cellular.
I am one of the “lucky” people who are able to use cell for my internet, however whether it’s the cell company having a craptastic network, software/hardware bugs on the my customer equipment, or a combination of both, there is only ONE cell tower I can connect to which yields a useful connection.
All other towers result in the equipment failing to connect to the tower, connecting but failing to get an internet connection, or only yielding download speeds 5Mbit of less.
I have found that by shoving sheet metal around my ISP’s equipment, I can quite easily block off the non-functional towers and ensure they’re never connected to. I don’t think speeds are any better, but it does help with reliability.
I wonder if it’s not only boxing the other towers but also boring the signal to the one you are aiming at, because you put a big mirror behind
I have tried that. I have a dish taken from a directional WiFi antenna. When placed behind the gateway, it sometimes increases speeds, sometimes hurts speeds, and sometimes does nothing. I found it a bit too inconsistent, and a bit too ugly, to be used permanently. If I had a proper mounting solution, I might have gotten it tuned just right, however at that point I would rather just buy and mount external antennas to hook into the gateway.
My exact deployment today actually doesn’t even have anything behind the gateway. That is just because for my specific case, all the towers it can reach are within a roughly 90 degree field of view. To block the bad ones, I really only need to block off a few sections of the window it’s sitting near.
You might want to search on the word cantenna. Helped set up a cantenna for a friend’s parents once. They lived in a lake house for a few years, but they were in a dead zone for pretty much everything. They had a cell booster that would occasionally get a single if luck was on your side, but once we set up the cantenna on the booster, they had a steady signal .
It will probably reflect some of the radiation. Wifi reception will be poorer behind the aluminium and possibly better in front.
A cheapskates version of a directional antenna.
Indeed, although this type of thing was more common with older wifi generations, so I’m not surprised kids these days wont know.
For example: We cut the top off an old beer can, poked a hole and stuck it onto the antenna to have stable download speeds across a courtyard.
I remember like 15 or 20 years ago the popular thing was printable papercraft doohickeys that you’d cut out and glue together with aluminum foil on the backside that were like little satellite dishes that mounted on the antennas that were supposed to boost/aim your wifi signal. I gave them a try, but if they made a difference it wasn’t big enough to be noticeable.
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Long live the Pringles cantenna
Wardriving intensifies
I have put my router in a 4 m parabol antenna, with this the signal has also improved somewhat, it only prevents me from using the sofa that is next to the router.
Remember Pringles antennas? Same energy.
Keeps out the conspiracy-based posts and only lets facts through.
Remember windsurfers? You put them on the single antenna of your old linsky router.
This can actually be beneficial if your router is right at the corner of your house. The foil acts as a reflector for some of the radiation that would’ve been wasted, and thus improves the signal quality within your house.
To actually be beneficial as a reflector, the foil would need to be a specific distance from the antenna, which should be a certain fraction of the wavelength. Source: I used to make parabolic reflectors out of milk cartons about twenty years ago.
