A few days back I gave a co-worker, who lives near me, open access to my wireless internet connection. Last night I was taking a run past his place. He shouted "Hello". I looked back and he had a tin can antenna in his hand!

I walked over to see what he was doing-- pointing the antenna at the different buildings and finding which ones had wireless networks. I had a good laugh at that so I decided to help. I got a tripod from my place. We mounted the tin can antenna on the tripod and continued searching the neighborhood.

I'm surprized how well the antenna works. We picked up half a dozen networks that you couldn't see with the regular antenna. Two of the networks were wide open.