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.