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I am having the same issue. My laptop is right next to it and gets great signal but the chumby gets 1-2 bars and often drops the signal.
You can tombstone the coupling capacitor, and solder down a U.FL connector (http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSea … e=H9161-ND), which is a standard connector that allows you to plug in an assortment of external antennae (digikey also sells a few whip antennae that come with U.FL connector terminations). When you do this, I suggest you scrape back the solder mask around the area so you can ground the collar of the U.FL connector. For development purposes I've done this a few times with good success.
Or, you can just pull out the wireless card from the USB socket, put the system back together again, and then put the dongle on some longish USB cable, so you have the flexbility to position the dongle where reception is better, and/or to use a third-party dongle that perhaps natively supports an external antenna. Generally, any dongle based on an RT2571 chipset should work well in this setup.
My current solution seems to be working well for me. I utilized the Virtual adapter feature of windows 7 to make a wi-fi hotspot and have the chumby connect to that. I now have FULL bars!!
So true...very disappointed with the signal strength this thing is getting. I have other devices including an iphone with much better wifi signal.
I ended up doing this:
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/8795/sideviewx.jpg
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/8426/topviewg.jpg
I get 2-3 bars of signal now, which seems to be enough to hold a radio stream. I'm still thinking of putting in a repeater, but that has to wait for later.
While I am sure your Chumby gets better reception, it kind of makes it less portable.
PS: Spotted...Benny Hill on DVD!
That's a heck of an antenna! Glad it's helping you get enough reception for streaming!
For anyone else looking to do this mod, there is a few sites describing how to add a connector to similar wifi dongles. here is a hack-a-day post that links a few. http://hackaday.com/2006/07/15/usb-wifi … l-antenna/
hi harmlessgryphon
would you by any chance has a picture of the place you solder? Would like to do similar mod as you did.
would you by any chance has a picture of the place you solder?
I don't have any at the moment. Give me a few days and I'll see what I can get for you.
Bumped.
Would be nice to have some pics, so we can reproduce your mod. Thanks!
Wow the looks like some kinda cb radio antenna, It looks cool wish I could do that for my infocast
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