Modifying old dish network dish for wifi

Hi,
I am new here. I am trying to modify an old dish network dish to get better wifi reception. I gutted the reciever part of the dish, hogged it out and made room for my USB Wireless Dongle. Will this work? Will it be any better than a tin can? Do I need to paint or cover the dish with aluminum foil? Here are some pics,
Thanks
Greg

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If you remember transistor radios you'll also remember how the reception got really crappy if your radio antenna was near anything metalic. That's because the metal was blocking the radio signals, and the only way to get a better reception was to move the antenna away from the metal.

Wireless technology works similar to transistor radios because they both use radio frequencies. In those pictures your USB wireless dongle looks like it's surrounded by metal. So I'm not sure if it'll pickup a clean signal.

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Peter Orengo Consulting
http://www.peterorengoconsulting.com

As porengo says surrounding with metal is bad as it blocks part of the antennas signal.

Metal sufaces reflect wireless signals, so what you need is something that directs most of the reflections in only one direction, some thing like this:

OK, I think I get the picture. Now I am going to use a biquad antenna at the focus point of the dish. I am going to run a cable to my router if this will work. What kind of connector do I need to connect into my router where the antenna was? I went to Radio Shack and they didn't have one.
Thanks again for all the help,
Greg

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Short answer:
That looks like a inverse polarity SMA conector.

Long answer:
What you need is a cable that goes from a reverse polarity SMA plug to whatever conector the bicuad antenna has.

You can buy a custom cable at:
Custom Cable and Pigtail Ordering

If you what to do it your self, what you need is a reverse polarity SMA plug, a conector for the bicuad antenna, the cable and the crimp tools.

You can buy them at hyperlink, here is a link (look under the Reverse-Polarity SMA-Plug Crimp Connectors title):
Reverse-Polarity SMA-Type / RP-SMA / RSMA Connectors

Crimp Tools
Crimp Tools and Cable Strippers

You'll be very happy with Dish Network old dish and a biquad antenna. No need for aluminum foil. Use plastic pieces to mount the biquad. Here is a great tutorial with pictures:

biquad antenna on a sat dish

How do you weatherproof the Wifi thumbdrive so that I can use my dish network dish as an antenna?

This should work for a souce that is about 1000 ft away - right?

Thanks