how to add external antenna to a laptop mini-pci card?

nleahcim · 09-07-2003

Hi - I'd like to add an external antenna to my laptop. It's a Dell 600M with a Dell Truemobile 1400 card in it. Strangely enough - it has two antennas attached - one has a white wire the other has a black wire. Don't know the difference between them. I am hoping to find something like a switched panel mount bnc connector or something - so that when I don't have an antenna it will use the built in ones, and when I do have an antenna attached it will use that one instead. Anyone have any advice or pointers for me? Thanks!

Wanderer · 09-07-2003

I'm going to recomend against this, and I'll tell you why. That connector on your wireless card is called a U.FL connector, and it isn't designed to be plugged and un-pluged more than a few times, or it breaks. And when you break it, you are going to have to take quite a bit of your laptop apart to get at the cable, then you have to figure out where to come up with a replacement part. HOWEVER, if you're going to not heed my advice, Netgate.com sells a cable that converts a U.FL connector to a RP-TNC connector. Most high-quality antennas can be ordered with a RP-TNC connector on them.

The truemobile 1400 is based around a Broadcom chipset (I think) and it works pretty well. Personally, I would take the $20 that you're going to spend in the antenna cable and put it toward an Senao/Engenius card instead. If the internal card isn't doing the job, slap in the Senao. You can get Senao cards with external connectors or get one with an internal antenna. And by doing this, you don't have to drill holes in the side of your still-under-warranty laptop.

nleahcim · 09-07-2003

Thanks for the warning about the connector breakTing easily. I had never even thought of the possibility of that. The card is located right next to one of the two security slot things - you know - the slots where you can attach a lock to a laptop. I was thinking I would run the wire through that - since I do want to avoid voiding my warranty. But would I leave the old antenna attached as well? Or would the built in antenna and an external antenna interfere with each other? Thanks!

Tedward · 09-07-2003

If you use WinDoze (and, yes, I must <g>!), you can make two Hardware profiles with each card. You'll get a menu when NT/XP boot, asking which card you'd like to use. It can also be set for xx number of seconds to default to specific card.

This way, you can use your built-in WiFi at HotSpots, when you really don't need an antenna; then switch over to your favorite PCMCIA card (TM 1150?) to use an external antenna. Since one card is 'off' and one 'on', depending on which profile you pick, they won't interfere with each other.

I'm sure there's a way to do this through Linux as well.

It works for me!
HTH!
TW

nleahcim · 09-07-2003

Quote:

Originally posted by Tedward
If you use WinDoze (and, yes, I must <g>!), you can make two Hardware profiles with each card. You'll get a menu when NT/XP boot, asking which card you'd like to use. It can also be set for xx number of seconds to default to specific card.

This way, you can use your built-in WiFi at HotSpots, when you really don't need an antenna; then switch over to your favorite PCMCIA card (TM 1150?) to use an external antenna. Since one card is 'off' and one 'on', depending on which profile you pick, they won't interfere with each other.

I'm sure there's a way to do this through Linux as well.

It works for me!
HTH!
TW

ergh - but I'm a poor college student - and I pretty much went broke buying this laptop. I'm not sure I could manage to pay for another wifi card. Pretty much whatever cash I have left is for booze err I mean books.

Wanderer · 09-07-2003

Quote:

Originally posted by Tedward
If you use WinDoze (and, yes, I must <g>!), you can make two Hardware profiles with each card. You'll get a menu when NT/XP boot, asking which card you'd like to use. It can also be set for xx number of seconds to default to specific card.

Why bother? I've got one laptop running Windows 2000 that has drivers for *8* different wireless cards running on it. And I don't have a bit of trouble with it (other than the longer boot times due to all the client managers loading) The cards are as follows: Cisco LMC342, Cisco LMC352, Orinoco Gold PCMCIA, Orinoco Gold USB, Dell TrueMobile 1180 USB, Proxim White USB (Hunk-o-Crap), Senao 200mW PCMCIA, Dell TrueMobile 1150 PCMCIA.

The TrueMobile 1400 client manager has a "Disable Radio" option, and if the radio is turned off, there's no way that the laptop would have trouble with this setup.

As for paying for another card, you're going to be dropping $20 or so on the U.FL to RP-TNC cable, and you're still going to need some kind of antenna, the cheapest of which is going to run you around $35. So that's $55.. For another $10 you can pick up one of the Senao cards with an internal antenna, and, quite frankly, if the Senao card can't do it, then you're going to have to go to something with a pretty big antenna that's going to be too big (and stupid looking) to carry around.

09-07-2003	#1 (permalink)
nleahcim Unregistered User Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 133	how to add external antenna to a laptop mini-pci card? Hi - I'd like to add an external antenna to my laptop. It's a Dell 600M with a Dell Truemobile 1400 card in it. Strangely enough - it has two antennas attached - one has a white wire the other has a black wire. Don't know the difference between them. I am hoping to find something like a switched panel mount bnc connector or something - so that when I don't have an antenna it will use the built in ones, and when I do have an antenna attached it will use that one instead. Anyone have any advice or pointers for me? Thanks!

09-07-2003	#4 (permalink)
Tedward Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 11	Hardware profiles If you use WinDoze (and, yes, I must <g>!), you can make two Hardware profiles with each card. You'll get a menu when NT/XP boot, asking which card you'd like to use. It can also be set for xx number of seconds to default to specific card. This way, you can use your built-in WiFi at HotSpots, when you really don't need an antenna; then switch over to your favorite PCMCIA card (TM 1150?) to use an external antenna. Since one card is 'off' and one 'on', depending on which profile you pick, they won't interfere with each other. I'm sure there's a way to do this through Linux as well. It works for me! HTH! TW Last edited by Tedward : 09-07-2003 at 08:24 PM.

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09-07-2003	#2 (permalink)
Wanderer Registered Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 70	I'm going to recomend against this, and I'll tell you why. That connector on your wireless card is called a U.FL connector, and it isn't designed to be plugged and un-pluged more than a few times, or it breaks. And when you break it, you are going to have to take quite a bit of your laptop apart to get at the cable, then you have to figure out where to come up with a replacement part. HOWEVER, if you're going to not heed my advice, Netgate.com sells a cable that converts a U.FL connector to a RP-TNC connector. Most high-quality antennas can be ordered with a RP-TNC connector on them. The truemobile 1400 is based around a Broadcom chipset (I think) and it works pretty well. Personally, I would take the $20 that you're going to spend in the antenna cable and put it toward an Senao/Engenius card instead. If the internal card isn't doing the job, slap in the Senao. You can get Senao cards with external connectors or get one with an internal antenna. And by doing this, you don't have to drill holes in the side of your still-under-warranty laptop.

09-07-2003	#3 (permalink)
nleahcim Unregistered User Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 133	Thanks for the warning about the connector breakTing easily. I had never even thought of the possibility of that. The card is located right next to one of the two security slot things - you know - the slots where you can attach a lock to a laptop. I was thinking I would run the wire through that - since I do want to avoid voiding my warranty. But would I leave the old antenna attached as well? Or would the built in antenna and an external antenna interfere with each other? Thanks!