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I have had great results with the Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000 and its built in Lucent card, however I wish to extend its range a bit and have some questions in re the posibility of using an external antenna.

Has anyone done this?

The card has two small posts into which the antenna wires connect, and then the wires run out to a small access cover on the right side of the device.

Would it be possible/feasible to just remove the wires and plug in some standard antenna wires and run them to a post int he cover with either a wire to a pringles can or roof mount antenna or even a small side mounted antenna?

I know nothing of antennas and transceiver technology other than where the on switch is, so please excuse the relative ignorance of the poster.

Jace

Same problem on my Acer, it uses the same orinoco mini-pci wireless card (2 connectors) i will post some pictures of the card !(soon)

Per the ORiNOCO spec, "The connectors are mechanically unique such that no off-the-shelf connector will fit (FCC requirement)."

Check this thread for the discussion on it.

http://forums.netstumbler.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2562&perpage=15&highlight=connector&pagenumber=2

(The Airport card is the ORiNOCO MiniPCI card)

I too had been stumbling with the built-in PCI (in Toshiba Portege)...I decided playing with the connectors was risky and I could ruin the card/reception. I just bit the bullet and purchased a Gold card for stumbling - the firmware for the PCI works fine with the Gold Card.

I still use the PCI card for in the office.

Toshi

do you mean the cover on the extreme right, or on the right underside in about an inch in the middle.

I get excellent coverage with mine, but would like to hav ethe external option as well.

Regards

aL

I've got a internal minipci Dell TrueMobile (in my Inspiron 8200), that uses the same kind of connectors, and am in the process of making a (/some) pigtail(s) for it.

I'm still waiting for a couple of parts, but if you are interested in a pigtail for these cards, let me know.

Any feedback for constructing the pigtail would be appreciated, including what kind of connector to use on the other end. I'm thinking standard N-type, but that might be bulky, so I'm thinking about making it disconnectable... don't know yet. Also, any ideas about where to route the cable through the Dell i8200 (in my case) would be nice.

.echochar

drill a small hole in the case and install a lucent jack to plug a pigtail into.

I took a pic of the Internal wireless card in My Toshiba Sattelite 5105-S701.

In The pic i have the white antenna wire connected, and the black one disconnected, and twisted around, so you can see the connector. It's kinda fuzzy, but it's the best my camera will do on something so small.

I also gave you a screenshot of my AP's SNR with the black antenna wire disconnected, and then I (very carefully) reconnected the black wire. The blue line I drew is where the second antenna was reconnected. You will notice that the SNR didn't change much with the second antenna disconnected. This makes me hopeful that it will run just fine with only one antenna connected internally, and leave one port for an external antenna connector.

The tricky thing will be coming up with a pigtail to connect to the tiny port on the card.

my sony PCG-SRX-87 has this same card, BUT sony was 1337 enuff to not flash it so it's considered a legit orinoco mini-pci .. gold also.. it's in such a place that i have room to put a small sma connector for detachability.. i will take mine out next time my machine needs a reboot (takes like 5 min) and take high res pics for you all..

BTW an ultra portable like mine, is perfect for stumbliing, as i can hide it easy and still stumble

yeah, thats the exact same card i have, theres one port that is considered the main, and one that is the aux. i dont know which is which.

i was just thinking of asking my manufacturer to send me some replacement antennea cables.. and then just using one as an adapter to an SMA or something of the sort, maybe eve a mmcx/mc for the pigtail..