Questions & Answers

Hi, just finished reading your article about the coffee can antenna. My question is how do you modify the wireless adapter card to accept the antenna. Any good directions or websites with pics?

Do you know how to solder and read circuit diagrams? Unless you really know what you are doing or have a spare card to experiment with, try finding a card with existing support for an external 2.4GHz antenna. Buy a new Buffalo AirStation Turbo G High Power Wireless Notebook Adapter or look for a used Buffalo Technology Wireless Notebook Adapter.



Having said that, here are some examples of card mods:

Salvage a Linksys BEFW11S4 router for its WPC11 PCMCIA card, pigtails, and antennas.

• ASUS WL-167g with RPSMA mod card-edge design connector
• Buffalo Air Station g54 WLI-U2-KG54-AI
• DWL-650 Antenna Connector
• Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA Modifications
• SMC-2632 802.11 Transceiver Modification to add an SMA connector
• Adding an Antenna Jack to the US Robotics 2410
• Compaq WL100 external antenna
• NetGear MA401 external antenna
• Installing a pigtail on a Orinoco type card
• Orinoco SMA Mod
• Linksys USB Mod
• mod a Orinoco/Lucent Silver for an iBook 700

You will find many of these wireless cards available on eBay.

For the convenience of not having to insert and remove a PC card, consider the 3Com-patented XJACK antenna design. It extends for excellent wireless LAN performance and retracts for safe transport—no need to remove the PC Card from the notebook.

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