Wi-Fi/antenna mod?

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Need to boost the signal on my Nexus S, it's almost unusable and switching to 3G in the next room from the router (expensive here in rural .au).

Tried three routers, channels, different devices etc.. it all points to a crap antenna in the nexus S or a crap wi-fi implementation.

I'm going to have a go at hacking it and while I have some experience messing with hardware, I've never successfully modded an aerial, I expect there's too much theory involved for me as whenever I read up on it there's a lot of conflicting info.

Anyway at this point my options I'm considering are:

- Cut internal antenna at start, wire in notebook wifi antenna (including cable/not including cable?)
- wire in notebook wifi antenna at end of internal antenna (including cable/not including cable?)
- wire in notebook wifi antenna at start of internal antenna (including cable/not including cable?)

Given that length is of utmost importance with antenna I'm hoping that it'll just go from a 1/4 length antenna to a 1/2 length or some such but does someone want to correct me?

Guess I'll just test it myself..

I couldn't find any other threads about this (with solutions) so I'll document as I go.

Anyone want to offer any advice before I get started tonight?

Well you should take into consideration the wavelength you use for the wifi router. That is all I really know. Too long an antenna and it wont even get those waves... too short as well, but wavelength depends also on the channel number router is on.

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Originally Posted by defroster

Need to boost the signal on my Nexus S, it's almost unusable and switching to 3G in the next room from the router (expensive here in rural .au).

Tried three routers, channels, different devices etc.. it all points to a crap antenna in the nexus S or a crap wi-fi implementation.

I'm going to have a go at hacking it and while I have some experience messing with hardware, I've never successfully modded an aerial, I expect there's too much theory involved for me as whenever I read up on it there's a lot of conflicting info.

Anyway at this point my options I'm considering are:

- Cut internal antenna at start, wire in notebook wifi antenna (including cable/not including cable?)
- wire in notebook wifi antenna at end of internal antenna (including cable/not including cable?)
- wire in notebook wifi antenna at start of internal antenna (including cable/not including cable?)

Given that length is of utmost importance with antenna I'm hoping that it'll just go from a 1/4 length antenna to a 1/2 length or some such but does someone want to correct me?

Guess I'll just test it myself..

I couldn't find any other threads about this (with solutions) so I'll document as I go.

Anyone want to offer any advice before I get started tonight?

On your router have you tried to set the Radio Band to 20MHz?? This will increase your range but lower your bandwidth.

One other thing is to shield your antenna with foil on one side to make it more directional.

Just some thoughts...

If you do try to change the internal antenna, you will need to calculate the correct length for it to work effectively, just as point99trash2011 stated.

Antenna Length Calculation

yep i've tried 20mhz, and the problem isn't just with my router, i need decent wifi on the phone for use with any router and also to control my ar drone.
haven't got around to cracking it open yet.