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Handhelds Wireless Networking Hardware

External Antennas for Tungsten C Handhelds? 33

Posted by Cliff from the increasing-your-reception-range dept.
Scummer asks: "I am tinkering with the idea of replacing my old Palm Vx with a Tungsten C from Palm since I really like the WiFi capabilities of this new handheld. However, I have read in some reviews, that the range of the T|C is not that great since it doesn't include an external antenna. Has anyone tinkered with his T|C, and can tell if it is possible to place a connector for an external antenna somewhere in there? Is the internal antenna soldered or is it actually plugged, which would provide a better signal quality? I mean, browsing Slashdot and reading email on a T|C from the playground (which is about 1 mile away from my house [with a 15dbi external omni on the roof]), while my kids are having fun falling off the playground equipment, would be awesome." Solutions should try to be a little more novel than Pringles' cans and floppy disks but I don't think the submittor will complain if it works.
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External Antennas for Tungsten C Handhelds? More

External Antennas for Tungsten C Handhelds?

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  • The Tungsten T doesn't do 802.11 - it's the Bluetooth Tungsten. For Bluetooth, its range is fine.

  • ringles can? Hah! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Flying-Cow-Man ( 686404 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @01:54AM (#6356238)
    Back in my day we used a coat hanger. If you had the time you would bend it into the shape of your favourite country. Certainly made the car easier to find, although I never did learn to recognise Finland....
  • From a thread on Brighthand, here is the FCC licensing docs including dissassembled pictures:
    https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.ex e/prod/oet/ forms/reports/Search_Form.hts?mode=Edit&form=Exhib its&application_id=176459&fcc_id=O3W200000

    Where's the antenna?
    • It might be covered by the ASUS riser card which is propably the WiFi extension module...
    • Thanks a lot for the link. Those are very good pics from the internals of a T|C. It seems like there is an MMCX connector on the ASUS PCB which could be used to rig an external antenna to it. Hmm... drilling a hole into the case where the MMCX connector is and actually be able to plug an external antenna right into that spot... hmm....
  • I would suggest first trying a powerful directional antenna at the base station (directed at the playground).
    See what kind of range that gets you. If you're lucky, maybe that could be sufficient.

  • The perfect solution for you is to... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Da VinMan ( 7669 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @02:15AM (#6356302)
    ...Replicate your content to your Palm and then away you go. Do you really need to be able to browse the web from 1 mile away? Sometimes we geeks should be asking "why" instead of "how".

    Just in case you don't know about this, you might want to try the AvantGo service [avantgo.com] to get the content you crave. You get 2MB a day for free and for $20/year you can get 8MB a day. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't firmly vouch for it, but I've been hoping to use it once I have a PDA (which should, hopefully, be soon).

    Another solution, if you must have the remote mobile capability, is to just get a PDA+cell phone combo. There are a lot of choices (a lot of Palm ones especially) in that category now, and if you have an Internet option in your phone's service plan, you could access the net from anywhere, not just within the range of your antenna.
    • I'll vouch for this solution. I had a palm m105 for the last 18 months of my degree, and (apart from organising my hitherto disorganised life) Avantgo saved me from falling asleep in many a 45 min lecture.

      Seriously, if you're never going to be spending more than an hour away from a PC then just cache enough content on your device to keep you happy for that long. Avantgo has a pretty good selection of its own channels, as well as allowing you to cache sites of your choosing. If something really piques y
    • Well, i used AvantGo a couple of years ago on my Vx for awhile, but it doesn't cut if for me. If i'm on the road and want to google something for some reason i would like to use some of the hotspots out there. And PDA+Cellphone is too expensive. I'm not willing to pay the high fee for such a miserable throughput a cellphone connection provides. And wardriving is certainly not possible with a PDA+Cell combination. So the only thing i can think of is getting the T|C and solder a MMCX connector onto the T
    • I can answer the "why"

      Because we can.

  • I have solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heldlikesound ( 132717 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @02:49AM (#6356439) Homepage
    Leave the Palm at home and play with your kids.
  • I borrowed one from the local Fry's E. I thought the range was OK but not great. The reception in my house for most wifi devices is pretty bad for some reason, but with a linksys B/G access point reception was about as good as my first gen netgear B card. The device it's self is pretty cool.

    O.T. I'm a hardcore grafiti user and I didn't care for the new grafiti that comes with it. I'd rather have an option for the old input interface. There are some things about it that work better... even than the T

  • Solutions and Their Drawbacks (Score:3, Informative)

    by HereAllNight ( 645064 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @04:43AM (#6356776)
    Palm devices, by their nature, move about quite a bit. This means that if you put a directional antenna directly on the device, you're going to have to learn to hold the device quite still. Not very practical. That leaves three choices:

    1. Keep the isotropic antenna that's already in the device, and increase gain at the base station.

    2. Void your warranty, open it up, and rig an external non-isotropic antenna (as suggested).

    3. Use some kind of passive elements and/or reflectors to create gain.

    For #1 above, the obvious solution is to point a directional antenna at the park. But if you want to have a signal at other places in the vicinity of your home, you'll either need to add more gain to your omni base antenna (15dB is a lot of gain already!), or adjust the beam tilt so the sweet spot hits the park. The drawback to either method is that you don't get something for nothing. Increased gain in one direction means negative gain (blind spots) in other directions.

    For #2, the drawbacks are that you lose your warranty, and will have to keep the external antenna very still. You need to find a way to mount the external antenna in a fixed position, pointing at the base station. For example, you could use a clamp to fix it to a park bench, and rig something up to adjust it. I bought a $10 fan with a clamp and adjustments at Walgreen's that would do nicely.

    Choice #3 is the most difficult to set up. You'll probably have to experiment a lot before you get results. Directional antennae use reflectors and directors in addition to the driven element to produce gain. You already have the driven element somewhere in the Palm. Depending on where it is, you can attach your own reflectors and/or directors to the outside of the Palm, and not void the warranty. It's more alchemy than science, but it can be done. I once taped a "T" antenna that comes with most FM radios to the ceiling, and then taped a few directors in the appropriate locations so that I could pull in a low-power college station. It wasn't pretty, but it worked! You're still going to have to contend with the problem of signal fading every time you move the palm, but it's worth a try.

    Reflectors are used to get around obstructions. If you have a building between your base antenna and the park, you could put up a sheet of metal that essentially acts like a mirror to the radio signal. This probably isn't practical in your situation, but it's worth mentioning just in case. Moving the base antenna around could possibly align some existing metal structure to reflect in the right direction.

    If you're not familiar with the various types of antennae, and the formulas used to construct them, I suggest going to your local library and checking out the latest ARRL Handbook.
  • Well, you should've just bougth the Tungsten W [palm.com] in stead. It includes GSM/GPRS so you could use it anywhere. Then you could take your kids to Disneyworld and still read e-mails.
    • > ... GSM/GPRS ... anywhere ...

      Oh, you mean as in "Does this thing work *anywhere*?" GSM/GPRS basically only works
      in major metro areas of a few countries,
      unfortunately. Maybe in 5 years I will find
      it useful.

  • Pringles can plus tinfoil helmet (Score:3, Funny)

    by ralphclark ( 11346 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @06:41AM (#6357009) Journal
    ...should work, with the helmet used to provide an good contact to Earth. For convenience the Pringles can could actually be fixed onto the helmet (obviously needs good insulation between them) which leaves your hands free.

    Of course then you won't be able to watch your kids at the playground because the minute you turn up you'll be ejected by angry parents wanting to protect their kids from the weirdo wearing the cyberman hat.

  • I mean, browsing Slashdot and reading email on a T|C from the playground (which is about 1 mile away from my house [with a 15dbi external omni on the roof]), while my kids are having fun falling off the playground equipment, would be awesome.


    I mean, how about you get off your fat american ass and fall off that equipment with your kids. Jesus Christ, if I wasn't getting paid for this rant...
  • But aren't there user forums for these sort of questions? I mean I'm all for helping people, but this seems more like a technical problem then something that really benefits from the /. community.

    That said, you should try some of the palm forums. There are a lot of Palm Geeks who have probably explored this, and would love a chance to show off.

    Gryftir
  • Get a W and pay for the service. The C's range is about 50 ft indoors, and that's plenty for what WiFi was intended for.
  • All of the posts previous did nothing to answer the original poster's question. Who the hell is modding these posts +1?!
  • You mentioned in your question you would be about a mile from your house. One solution would be do simply put a bridge in your car with a directional antenna. Hopefully the parking lot of the playground is close enough that you can get access to the AP in your car from the bench. (Oh, what? You're on a budget?)

    In a reply you said you'd like todo some war driving with it. This being the case you might consider opting for something other than a Palm since you're not going to find any decent war driving softw
  • The Asus board is held on with a couple of screws, it's about 1.5 sq. inch. with a tiny MMCX connector on one corner, on the underside when assembled.

    The board pops off with a nice zero-force style connector (is that the right name?) but it's actually irrelevant. You don't need to touch it.

    The antenna itself is simply a wire which goes up the right back side (when looking at the back of the unit), and across the width of the top of the unit. It's held in place with a couple of plastic clips at various poi

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