Wireless Attenna

[openbsd-flipp]

This is more a question of the 2.4Ghz spectrum and colors. I have recently acquired a **** ton of wireless parabolic dishes that are tuned to the 2.4Ghz frequency and work great with wireless networking as well as for the 2.4Ghz portable phones. My plans are to be putting two of them on a fishing boat and the other pair on the house that is on the lake. My plan is to have one hooked up to the access point so I can fish and listen to rantradio.com in the middle of the lake. I am going to hook to the other pair to the portable phone so that I do not miss any calls.

The problem is that these dishes are white and silver. The boat is completely black. There is no other color on the boat. My trailer is black. My truck is black. I do not want the dishes to be so obvious to the passerby because the house is in Minnesota and I love in Chicago. My plan is to sand blast and paint the dishes pitch black. I just do not want to do this if my reception turns to ****. The lake is about 15 miles wide and I am hoping to get reception in the middle of the lake without boosting the signal.

So I guess the question is "What does color do to satelite/wireless antennas?" Does the color of a device reduce the amount of signal reception? Is one type of paint better then another for an antenna?

[ECA]

1. DONT SAND BLAST..
2. Use a Epoxy based Paint... THIN coat it. Thin the stuff down with Aceitone..

Shouldnt cause a problem and will LAST..

Reflection CAN be a Nice thing, but thats for SAT, not this. Its not a focused dish.

[llbbl]

What are they made out of? Plastic might deform if you sand blast it too hard. I think that is what ECA is thinking.

[openbsd-flipp]

The dishes are made out of aluminum or some other form of light weight metal.

[ECA]

I was saying that this ISNT a focused anteena as with Sat Dishes, which are made from Many materials. Its made of metal and NO parabolic. So he can Paint it. But you dont want metal based paints, it will change the frequency or spread it.

[openbsd-flipp]

Thanks for the heads up. I just didn't want the thing to stand out two much. I just got some aircraft paint stripper so I will let you know how the end results are.

[ECA]

why do you need to strip it?? is it already painted??

[ECA]

There IS, a neet trick, IF you can do it..
Incorporate it into the structure.. Makes it abit directional.
But mounting it into the frame is grat, and VERY hard to see as well as detect.
Ya, Im a jack of all trades.. On the surface of OLD tech.
NEW tech scares me abit, because I see the vulnerabilities.

Love these companies that think 65,000 possiblities is ENOUGH.
I figure that 64 bit, and 3 password protection is ALOT better.

[llbbl]

"But you dont want metal based paints, it will change the frequency or spread it."

Does it have metal flecks in it?

[openbsd-flipp]

The dish is painted white so it will stand out alot more on the boats. Once I strip it I will have a better idea of where it can be mounted.

[ECA]

WHy not just PAINT over the white?

Clean it up, make sure theres NO greese/oil, and paint it.

[openbsd-flipp]

Since I do not know that much about eliptical dishes I wantes to make sure i will not cause interferance. I figured that by stiping the paint off I can also weld the weak sections to avoid breakage inthe future.

[ECA]

If its all metal...
And if its NOT aluminum...
Reception is based on the size of the metal, and the length...DONT change either.