Xmas Gifts – Late

Well I got back to Tahoe to find that the xmas gift I ordered for my mother had showed up — late. Oh well. On the bright side my wardriving kit also showed up. I set it up in the office with netstumbler going to get an idea of how well it works.

The Orinoco card alone defenetly took a signal strength it — this was except though. On my laptop the miniPCI wireless card is actually hooked to an antenna that loops through back of the LCD — like any intelegent laptop should have. Once I plugged in the omnidirectional antenna…. Oh man. It defenetly can chew through alot more noise to pick up a signal. Granted I dont really get signals much “stronger” but I can pick up much fainter signals. With this kit I picked up other wireless signals from the office building which I normally cannot see at all — I’ve even picked up a signal from a residential WAP which is no closer than 300 feet at the absolute minimum (through a number of walls too).

This should be fun to take out for a spin. I think I’m going to take a quick war drive the “old fassion” way (just laptop) then repeate the proccess with the wardriving kit and see how many more AP’s I pick up.