If you live on more than one floor or have a lot of internal walls it can be hard to get a strong Wi-Fi signal at times.

Taking your laptop upstairs or into the garden can cause many devices to lose the signal – and with it your Internet connection.

Rather than balancing on one leg at a 78 degree angle to try and get that one bar of signal, here’s a tip from scientist Peter Cochrane you can use.

Incredibly he discovered this while cruising on a boat on the Norfolk Broads.

If you’ve got a baking tray (an old one will do) angle it to reflect the signal and boost your Wi-Fi range. This even works with ‘dongles’, the small usb devices that plug into laptops.

Here’s what Peter found:

“A visit to the galley turns up a much-used baking tray. A few simple experiments later and I’m able to locate the direction of the 2.5G base station and the strongest Wi-Fi signal.

So I now have three bars of Wi-Fi and 2.5G by way of the unlikely combination of a baking tray and some judicious positioning.

You won’t find this in any textbook, but it works sufficiently well for me to complete my email and other business online. All the other options would have been far more expensive and far less convenient.”

There you have it, a home-made solution to a modern problem!

Please note: Blue Peter badge not included.