I am new to wireless and want to know if there is an antenna that will work for my hp notebook that has built-in wireless? Or do I need another wireless card? I was told a signal seeker will work? Thanks.
- posted
18 years ago
I am new to wireless and want to know if there is an antenna that will work for my hp notebook that has built-in wireless? Or do I need another wireless card? I was told a signal seeker will work? Thanks.
The HP laptops (and I don't know about notebooks, so maybe it is the same) were not designed to have an external antenna connection; however, there is actually access to the connector through a lid on the bottom. It certainly was not intended for connection to an external antenna and I would not particularly recommend trying it, but it could be done.
PCMCIA wireless cards that have connectors for an external antenna are hard to find. I don't know if any currently manufactured models have a connector.
Hence for many such situations a USB connected wireless is the only reasonable approach. I don't know if and have antenna connectors, but there are at least two other possible ways to use a USB wifi.
Several models come mounted as an integral part of an antenna, which in may be a high gain directional antenna or omni directional antenna. The advantage of course is you can locate them at the end of at least a 15 foot length of USB cable, which is "lossless" (as compared to placing an external antenna that far away, which would be nearly a total loss...). In fact I'd expect almost any of them to work at the end of a pair of tandem connected USB cables, 30 feet or so long, even though that exceeds the USB specs.
A second method with USB is very popular too. Buy one with a very small builtin antenna, and use that to feed a reflector. The reflector can be a waveguide antenna like the popular "cantenna", or something like a parabolic reflector. Other configurations are possible, so let your imagination loose.
Which model HP laptop/notebook and which wireless card?
Most HP Laptops use MiniPCI cards for their wireless. The RF connector is a Hirose u-FL connector. Most cards have two antenna connectors for diversity reception. What I did was sneak a pigtail in through the cooling vents, near the MiniPCI card, and attach it to the
2nd antenna connector. The other end went to a do-it-myself antenna that was attached with double sided tape to the back the display (Hint: use the LCD metal back as a reflector). I did have to drill a small hole in a plastic wall to pass the coax. A big problem was that the coax needed to go around the hinge and therefore tended to dangle in a open loop that gets caught on literally everything. I taped it down to the case, but that really looks ugly. If I had to do it again, I would have drilled the LCD lid, and run the coax through the hinge. However, that was way too much work, and the custome didn't want me drilling his laptop case.Finding a u-FL pigtail was a problem. I had a few laying around, but they were only about 6" long. Barely long enough for this one job, but not really useful for sneaking through the LCD lid. At this time, I do not have a reliable source of u-FL pigtails. See:
There was also a web site offering a kit to mount an SMA connector on the back of a laptop. That might not be a bad idea as the external antenna could then be removed. I couldn't find the site.
Omni laptop mount (but lacking a u-FL connector):
The mini-USB dongle adapter can be used directly on a reflector or in a cantenna setup.
Check out:
SMC Elite Connect 2.4GHz, 11Mbps Wireless card.
model SMC2532W-B this model has a removeable external antenna with connectors.
The "Netgate" link on the "Seattle" site is invalid but they still do kits,according to their web-site :-
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