External Antenna

[darkgreen]

Following up on my post above: I bought a wilson antenna and tried it out for several days.

1) The port under the back cover is indeed a radio port and you can plug in the antenna here with the mini connector that comes with the antenna for the Droid.

2) I had a 7dB antenna and it didn't make much difference at all. I found this surprising since I've used external antennas on many phones in the past. I even went to field service mode to watch the power, and tried recording data in excel and using statistical tests to figure out if there was an effect within the noise - but it was not statistically significant. I tried direct connection and also the inductive connector in case the port had an issue.

Overall I have found that an unpowered antenna did nothing for my reception quality. This raises several possibilities:

A) Perhaps the Droid's RF input is finely balanced so putting additional path length on it, even with added antenna gain, does not offer improvement.

B) I may be in an area where the signal to noise (SNR) is dependent on the interaction of multiple towers who are combatting each other. If you dig up some of my other posts you will see from my interactions with Verizon that they wound up changing the local tower settings after I turned over some data to them (for which I give them lots of respect!). But if the SNR in my area is defined by two towers fighting each other, then receiving more signal in the band under question will not return more SNR.

Overall I found the experience disheartening, except that during it all I collected enough data that Verizon was able to fix the local cell problem and my service is much better now with or without the antenna :icon_eek::icon_eek:

 

[gavron]

Dorks....

KE6JDA

Indeed.

de N5NEQ

 

[Crystal995]

Well I emailed another company and this is what they said --The Wilson 352015 is a very common adapter for the Motorola phones and will work with the Droid with a little tweaking. What you would need to do is lightly sand the outer white nylon fitting on the adapter as it is slighly to large for the hole on the back of the phone

 

[polack]

I have been in constant contact with the people over at smoothtalker.com since the droid came out. They just released their new cradle for the droid and there is no antenna port on the cradle that the phone connects into. I asked how they were getting the external antenna connection and this is the email i received.
"Inside the cradle we have built a High Gain Passive antenna component which connects to a 3 watt booster or external antenna.

You are correct a passive connection is not as good as a Direct connection, there is a loss of 4-8db, however this is the only way to connect to phones now a days the Phone Manufactures are not providing access to the RF ports any more."
I have always run smoothtalker and i've always been satisfied so i'm going to give this a shot and see what happens.

 

[Crystal995]

I think I may have this External Antenna figured out...

For the ones who are interested I did some experiments and these are my results.
I have the adapter # 352015 and the Wilson #301101 Dual Band Mirror Mount Cellular Trucker Antenna.

Day one; with the phone on I hooked the adapter up to the back port and boom I had 3G coverage "Heys" unhooked it and boom it would not disengage and go back to the internal antenna nothing no bars what so eve r:icon_ cry::icon_ cry: ***I was now in Freak out mode** I figure at this point to put it away and go back to thinking how to get it back. So I turned the phone off, pulled the battery and still nothing.
So then came to me with the phone still on I hooked the adapter back up and I was getting bars again that told me just maybe I did not do no real damage so with the antenna hooked up so I powered off the phone waited a few minutes then unhooked the adapter, said a prayer and powered up the phone again and wala we have bars again and the phones internal antenna reengage . Ok this was enough for one day and maybe I should rethink this and see if I want to make another attempt to try this again just doing it differently.

Actually I left it alone for a couple of days before I got brave again; This time I powered the phone down waited a few mins hooked the adapter up, Powered the phone up and of course I had 3G coverage used the phone with it hook up for a little bit. But now comes the real question will it disengage from the outside antenna and reengage back to the phone.
With adapter still hooked up I power down the phone waited again and unhooked the adapter, Powered the phone back up. Looked at the bar status and this time the phones internal antenna reengage :icon_ banana:. So like a regular computer when you are hooking things up you power down then hook up whatever then power back up so I guess our phones work the same way. As far as long term doing this I really don't know.

 

[Bear in NM]

Crystal,

Thanks for the bravery testing this out. I saw a warning in one of the links above about possible damage to the internal switching with one of the products. That was a very big pause on my part. I know with my old LG dumb phone I never had issues with internal switching, but clearly you have shwon that the smart phone does appear to be smart.

Quick question, how much work was it to mod the exterior of the adapter? Being the owner of a couple of Trucker antennas, I may need to play with this feature. Not greatly pressing as I have a powered amp, but it might be handy to have the option, as I am using the powered amp with a trucker antenna.

Thanks again,

Craig

 

[Crystal995]

It is not that hard what I did is lightly sand the outer white nylon fitting on the adapter with a cardboard emory nail file very slightly making sure you do hit or touch the pin in the center of the adapter.

How is the amp working out for you? I looked into one of these and I am not sure how they work also the price was like $200.00 what kind do you use?

 

[Bear in NM]

Crystal,

Thanks for the reply on the mod. Sounds pretty easy.

I did comment on my amp earlier in the thread, but I am running the mobile Wilson in my Jeep, and we have the desk mounted Wilson at home. I ended up paying closer to full retail for both of mine in order to buy local, and both were well over two bills. But, both work exceptionally well. The only "issue" with both is that due to the antenna gain, they are both a little susceptable to feedback, so you do have to keep the external antenna and the internal transponder seperated as per their manual.

Everything is very well made, and pretty robust, and I would have no problem recommending them. As to worrying about whether they will work as advertised, my experience with both the mobile and home unit is that if your Trucker Antenna is giving you any gain at all, the amps will make it solid. This is based on my use in marginal areas where I would get perhaps a bar, perhaps intermittent. I was told that they may not extend your range much beyond the cellular tower limits, but will make that weak signal useable. That has been my experience.

Craig

 

[Crystal995]

Thanks, One thing on doing it my way it really is not stable and may end up causing damage to the internal antenna which I don't want. I like your way better but the price is really hard to swallow it is really a shame that phone company have forgotten that some people still live in boon docks.

Wilson makes several different home amplifiers what is the model number of yours? And don't you have to use the Velcro passive antenna adapter with it?

 

[Bear in NM]

Crystal,

Here's the one we use, #801247

Cell Phone Antennas and Cell Phone Boosters at Wilson Electronics

This does not require anything on the inside other than the desktop unit which repeats and boosts the signal. Nothing to the phone. We get about 7-10 feet of range from the internal antenna, better than desktop distance as was told to me. Funny thing is that it also transmits straight down as well, so we can get signal at our dining room table which is on the first floor below the unit. You do not have to place the receiving antenna outside the house, but it does need 20 feet of seperation from the desk top sending unit.

One other little plus is that this is not just a VZW deal, any carrier that uses the same band. So my sister-in-law gets ATT&T boost at our house, as well.

Craig

 

[[email protected]]

Danger Will Robinson Danger, per wilsonelectronics NEVER connect an amplifier directly to a cellular internal / external connector. You will blow out the receiver. If you desire to direct connect an amplifier, call Wilsonelectronics tech support to be sure you have that the correct power output from the Power Amp. A well designed passive antenna, with good cables and minimum number of connectors; will give you trouble free Inexpensive results, with GOOD signal gain. I have talked to the Wilson people many times (on the Phone and in Person) and they really care about their customers, and are proud of their RF engineers. :biggrin:

 

[Crystal995]

Crystal,

Here's the one we use, #801247

Cell Phone Antennas and Cell Phone Boosters at Wilson Electronics

Craig

Hi Craig,
Well I think I am going to bite the bullet and buy the SIGNALBOOST DT but I really wanted to use my Wilson 301101 Antenna and the cables which are black and are easier to hide. I email Wilson and with sending them an email they are really short on their answers and I was trying to avoid calling them long distance. Anyhow they said the antenna that comes with the Signalboost DT is engineered for 75 Ohm cabling. The 308401 is not compatible with the system but they did not say if there was a adapter or not .

On yours are you using the supplied Antenna and cables? Or are you using a trucker antenna with different cables?

 

[cesareborgia]

I was surprised when I got my Droid and took the battery cover off to realize that there was a little plug in there for an external coax antenna (doesn't seem like any of the reviews mentioned it...)

Does anybody know more about it? Of the five radios (GPS, bluetooth, wifi, 3G, 1X), which is it for, or is it for multiple?

As unnecessary as it may be, it would be pretty badass to mod a big, 80's style antenna on top of this thing to get twice the wifi reception or so...

Before I moved over to Verizon and a Motorola Droid I was with Helio/Vergin Mobile. It operated on the Sprint Network. I spent 6 months in an area that has horrible reception, almost no reception at all. I needed a connection that worked so I started looking into what I could do.

The little coax connection in your phone is not uncommon. Almost all cell phones have a coax connectors for exterior antenna. If you ever looked at an older style brick or flip phone you might see a tiny little rubber or plastic plug in the side somewhere. It looks like it's nothing, but if you remove it there is usually that same coax connector under the plug.

So, in the area I was in that had crummy reception I simply took some copper wire, very thin copper wire. I doubled it up and twisted it so that it looked like twine. Then I wrapped it around a smooth around pen about half an inch from the top of the wire, 6 times around the pen leaving about 4 inches at the bottom. I took it off the pen, stretched the loops a little then simply inserted the wire at the bottom into the coax hole, it's tiny and all the sudden I had bars, and not just one but almost full bars. I was totally amazed to be honest. But even still, the wire hanging out of a small hole in the side of your phone is not cool. And I needed to be mobile, after all that is what a cell phone is all about. So, down to rat shack I went.

I ended up buying some super thing insulated copper wire. I made my loops super small this time. I took off the back of the phone and threaded my new antenna through the open areas of the phone where it couldn't harm anything, then connected it again to the coax plug. After I put everything together, I had much better reception but not AS good as the previous method, but it worked, and everything was contained.

Still I wasn't totally happy, I wanted to use my phone for connecting to the internet, so back to rat shack I went. I ended up ordering the correct coax connector with a real wire, but the cellular antenna's were totally outrageous, expensive, screw that. So I ended up taking two coffee cans, cutting out the bottom of one and soldering them together so I had essentially, one big long can. Then about 3 inches from the bottom of the long can I cut a small hole. I stripped the coax wire at the end, to about 1 1/2 inches of bare wire and fed that through the hole, siliconed it in place. Then about 1/2 an inch above the hold, inside the can, I bent the wire so that it was pointing out of the can. Now I had a directional cellular antenna, hooking up the coax cable when I was at the house I was renting, I had a solid 5 bars so long as the antenna was pointed at the cell tower. It took a little time to get it dialed in correctly, but it worked amazing.

You can find youtube video's for similar methods. Essentially that coax connector you are looking at, is your antenna.

 

[Bear in NM]

Crystal,

Here's the one we use, #801247

Cell Phone Antennas and Cell Phone Boosters at Wilson Electronics

Craig

Hi Craig,
Well I think I am going to bite the bullet and buy the SIGNALBOOST DT but I really wanted to use my Wilson 301101 Antenna and the cables which are black and are easier to hide. I email Wilson and with sending them an email they are really short on their answers and I was trying to avoid calling them long distance. Anyhow they said the antenna that comes with the Signalboost DT is engineered for 75 Ohm cabling. The 308401 is not compatible with the system but they did not say if there was a adapter or not .

On yours are you using the supplied Antenna and cables? Or are you using a trucker antenna with different cables?

Crystal,

On the repeater at home (the one I linked to) I am using all of the hardware that came with the unit. As Charles posted, I am a little leary about mixing and matching things, as Wilson spec's things out to be optimized. Not to discount the tin can techique posted above (I have seen that mod posted before), I really cannot afford to go out and pay full retail for a busted Droid, so I am playing it safe. Also, the local shop that sold me the desk top unit was pretty insistent about not ordering parts to mix and match.

I am using my Trucker Antenna with my mobile repeater in my Jeep, as that is speced to work with the supplied roof mount (magnetic) or Trucker antenna. FWIW, I have the antenna mounted on my light bar with a swivel lock, so that I can lock it up and receiving, or down for brush crawling.

Thinking out loud, it would be possible to run the mobile unit as a home unit, with an ac/dc converter. The downside is that on the mobile unit, the transponder/repeater has very limited range, and has its own cable. The phone literally has to almost be in contact with the transponder pad(which is cabled to the amp). Which I do mobilly, using the external speaker on the phone to keep the transponder away from my noggin:icon_eek:
The mobile unit would give you the ability to put it in a vehicle, as well.

Craig

edit: I forgot to mention that there is probably a db gain difference between the desk and mobile units, so this would obviously have to factored into a decision as to whether either unit will give you enough gain to get a useable signal.

 

[[email protected]]

Simple is Great

I use a Quad-Band Magnet Mount Antenna #304202 (has great gain 5.0 dBi) from Wilson Electronics. For both Mobile and Stationary applications. Don't get me wrong their Amp's are great, but you have to have good separation of the inside / outside antenna's, or you will get feedback (like sticking a microphone in front of the speakers) lot's of noise and no fun. The 304202 has excellent gain and small enough to pack in your laptop case. Any place you put this antenna it always seems to get the job done.

I tried the Mini Magnet Mount Cellular Antenna - FME Female #301113, not enough gain only 2.12 dBi. . I not saying the Mini is bad, just the 304202 is a 100 times better + 1.98 dBi better, and when your in Signal challanged areas, it will make the difference between :icon_ banana: or .