Majorly Increase The Ds Wireless Range

[Chuplayer]

Screw 30 feet. I want to emit and receive signals across town. There's gotta be some other people playing the DS somewhere around here. Are there any non-hoax mods that allow you to increase your range?

I also bought the bullcrap warranty at EB Games, so I don't have to worry about messing the system up over the next year. I can just keep getting replacements.

I want to get the FCC after me.

[phreak97]

i was planning to make an external aerial and put it on my roof facing my friends place.. but i dont have the money for the parts atm

[Chuplayer]

i was planning to make an external aerial and put it on my roof facing my friends place.. but i dont have the money for the parts atm

Sounds cool, but wouldn't that be an FCC magnet? (I know I said I wanted the FCC after me, but I really don't.) Anyway, how far is he from you?

[benzaldehyde]

I wouldn't worry about the FCC. They're busy keeping titties off the air, God bless 'em. :rolleyes:

Wouldn't you need some sort of physical antenna connection within the unit? IIRC, the DS doens't run on 802.11, but something similar. You'd need to learn the frequency to build a good dish.

[caphynehy]

It communicates on 802.11 with the only difference being Nintendo's proprietary protocol.

[phreak97]

yeah, it runs at about 2.4ghz or something, and im going to install a little port in the back of the system.. theres enough room above the card slot i think.
and my friend is only two houses down, and i doubt the antenna would make it powerful enough to be illegal.

[Akir]

I don't think that warentys are applicable if YOU are the person who messed it up.

[Chuplayer]

I don't think that warentys are applicable if YOU are the person who messed it up.

So if I do mess it up, I'll run over it with my Jeep before I take it back to the store. I'll say a gang ran over it with their pimpmobile. They'll never know the difference.

Anyway, the DS's wireless shouldn't be too different from standard 802.11 if it can communicate with your home's wireless connection or a hotspot for online play coming later this year. It shouldn't be too hard to do.

[atom]

At eb they tell you if you pay a couple bucks more then you can return it no matter what. Great idea for modders!

[Akir]

I know where I'm buying my systems for now on (sorry game repair... You served me faithfully)

[Chuplayer]

At eb they tell you if you pay a couple bucks more then you can return it no matter what. Great idea for modders!

A lot of places do that. I got my XBOX with a warranty at Gamestop/Funco in 2001. I got a TV with a warranty at the same EB I got my DS at. Came in handy, too. I had to replace it twice. I also got a couple PC microphones at Best Buy.

[TJ_Kat]

find an electrical engineer (or a student). i knew of a couple that increased the range on their graphing calculator to almost 200 meters, and gave it a receiving cone of about 120 degrees. i know it's not the same thing, but it couldn't be too much different.

[dum dum]

if you can transmit to another machine only with an amplifier, wouldn't that other machine need its on amp to transmit back to you? or can you amplify incoming signals as well as outgoing?

[kendrick]

Without getting into too much detail... The time-honored method for increasing the range of 2.4 gHz RF is to make it directional. That is, instead of transmitting in big concentric waves, you focus it with a dish or a tube and you point it one way. Since the FCC prohibits increasing power output or otherwise amplifying your signal, this is the best way to get two stationary RF devices to communicate with each other. So if you have a buddy two miles away who wants some DS action, you can attach to external antennas that have a line-of-sight transmission path to each other. This has the advantage of being a reversible modification too.

This is admittedly an oversimplification, and doesn't get into complicated topics like the shape and the length of the antenna based on the frequency of the signal you're tossing around.

-KKC, who can't decide if he should finally pick up a Gameboy Advance SP or not.

[phreak97]

care to go into detail about the shape and the length of the antenna based on the frequency of the signal you're tossing around?

[kendrick]

Ah hell, I used to have a bunch of the 802.11 homebrew sites bookmarked, and then I got disinterested... You want to do a search on "homemade wifi antennas" and maybe even "Pringles can antennas" because apparently the length and the diameter of the popular potato chip can is perfect for that kind of unidirectional transmission. The idea is that you have a hollow tube with reflective material on the inside, and then about two-thirds of the way down the length of it you stick a metal conductor that acts as the focal point. There's math involved in the placement of that little nub.

Apparently, for really long-distance transmission you can recycle an old satellite TV dish as well. Not the Direct TV type, but the really old four-foot ones which apparently match up with the wavelengths more evenly. Again, I'm being vague because I can't remember and because I don't have the information handy. Give me a little while and let me see if I can't hunt down all that data again.

-KKC, who has Baten Kaitos in his hot little hands. On sale, even.

[Ultimate Dev'r]

If the DS operates at 802.11, then you can take a 2.4GHz antenna, solder it to the area inside the DS where the signal is transmitted, and that will surely increase your distance. This has been proved with wireless PCMCIA cards.

[Guest]

On the top of my flat i have a huge ass aerial for receiving terestrial TV and Freeview, could this be used to expand the range of the ds signal? Or just allow the 100foot clear ( because its right up in the sky )

[phreak97]

im pretty sure you need an aerial with the right length wire reciever/transmitter thingo.. one of those old satellite dishes will work, but youll need to replace the reciever with a custom one, you can make the custom one from a baked bean can with a few things attached...