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Hack 44 Increasing the Range of a Titanium PowerBook

Radio waves just don't
penetrate titanium, but that shouldn't keep your
TiBook from getting online.

Apple's

Titanium PowerBook is arguably
one of the most aesthetically pleasing laptops on the market. Its
wide-screen display is particularly striking, and like the rest of
Apple's entire line, it can accommodate a built-in
AirPort card. Unfortunately, while the choice of titanium for an
outer shell might make the TiBook pleasing to the eye and touch, it
wreaks havoc with wireless.

The all-metal case acts as an effective Faraday cage, blocking radio
signals from anywhere but the tiny plastic antenna ports on either
side of the keyboard. To make matters worse, the antenna ports
coincide with the exact position that most people rest their hands
when not typing. When this happens, it's all too
common for connectivity to drop altogether as the client radio
desperately tries to find a path to the AP.

Apple is aware of the problem, and is working on improving the
situation as new versions of the titanium PowerBook are released.
Some users report increased coverage simply by making sure that the
antenna connector is firmly seated in the AirPort card, as it can
sometimes become dislodged slightly after leaving the factory. But
even with a perfectly operating card and antenna, TiBooks routinely
see about half of the range of the cheaper plastic iBooks, which have
a much more visible internal antenna.

Fortunately, there is hope. Since the TiBooks have a PCMCIA slot, it
is perfectly possible to add another wireless card and use it instead
of the built-in AirPort. The biggest drawback to this approach is
that Apple's nicely integrated wireless tools work
only with the internal AirPort card, so you will have to get used to
using other means to control your wireless connection. But the two-
to four-fold increase in range can be well worth the effort.

The
WirelessDriver project lives on
SourceForge at http://wirelessdriver.sourceforge.net/. As of
this writing, it is confirmed to support more than 40 different
wireless cards under OS X, and probably
supports many more. It works with Prism-based cards as well as Hermes
and Aironet cards.

One very popular add-on card is the
EnGenius/Senao series, particularly
the 2511. It puts out 200mW, and is a particularly sensitive radio.
It comes in two versions, with and without an internal antenna. If
you use the 2511-CD+EXT2, you need an external antenna like the
Poynting patch [Hack #43], as it has no internal
antenna of its own. A good choice for a card with an internal antenna
and an antenna connector is the
Lucent/Orinoco/Proxim Silver or Gold
card. Like the internal AirPort card, it puts out only 30mW, but is
fairly sensitive, and quite inexpensive (averaging about $40 at this
point).

Remember that the best thing you can do to improve the range of any
wireless device is to make its antenna as visible as possible to the
access point you are trying to communicate with. While an add-on card
might not be as convenient as the built-in AirPort card, anything is
better than hiding your antenna behind a suit of titanium armor.