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Help WiFi antennas

tbod and dart, if you guys ever get to San Francisco and want to do some editing, let me know.:D

Sidenote: THe Edimax antenna comes with a short USB extension cable. Theoretically, performance should improve if the antenna is not next to the case. I find the opposite. I'm getting better reception without the extender. If anyone has the same EW-7711UAn antenna I have, try it with and without the extender and see if it matters.

Using Tokaplot 2.4 -
I'm getting -55dBm from my internal, original wifi dongle & antenna
I get -49dBm from the Edimax when mounted in the top USB slot and
I get -43dBm to -49dBm when its fitted to the extension cable, dependent on exactly where I place it.

Both of those gains are pretty worthwhile.....
 
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Interesting gain figures, broadly in unison with the ones I obtained from my dongle. I think the difference we observed with the extension cable could well be because the extension cable I received was 1.2 meters long, not 15cms!!.

It would be interesting to see what figures are obtained if a dongle is gutted and fitted inside the tablet, I would expect to see the gains drastically reduced but perhaps still worthwhile......

Beyond my pay grade, but you have my permission to try it on your Pad.:D
 
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Has this idea gone any further?


Yes.. people have gutted the Edimax EW7811Un and fitted it inside TAB10 tablets, but that was because they had flashed firmware that resulted in their internal wifi modules to stop working (different chipset) and the EW-7811 uses a RTL8188CUS chipset.....

I wouldn't expect any great improvement between the standard wifi dongle and any other add-on dongle when placed inside the case, the Realtek chipsets used in the original adapters are pretty much industry standard and all of the dongles conform to the maximum output power regulations, so the only improvements are to be had by better antennas and better impedance matching.
 
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