Adding a Stick-on Antenna booster to improve signal - ORiNOCO Gold/ Jornada 728

Hi Gang,

I have several of the cell phone stick-on antenna boosters and thought I would try sticking one on my ORiNOCO GOLD PC card WIFI to see if I could boost the signal on my Jornada 728.

I went outdoors to where the signal was "marginal" and tried several locations and orientations of the stick-on on the card, but got no difference in connection strength.

Anybody have any ideas for making a difference, or am I barking up the wrong tree? I even removed the plug from the card's antenna port and tried contacting the stick-on "trace" momentarilly, but no difference.

Hal

Edited by Hal 2008-11-10 7:21 PM

I tried once a 3x external antenna on Orinoco Gold and got no improvement. This made me believe only those cards designed to accept external antenna(s) and marked as 'high power' would make a difference.

Moved to Hardware Support

You mean 5 volts as opposed to 3.3?

Those antenna things are crap...period. Look, the optimal antenna would be a full wave length antenna of the operating frequency. Think of a standard TV antenna. All of those aluminum wires that stick out are called radials. Each one is cut to a different length depending on the frequency of the TV signal. Each channel is a different frequency, hence each radial is a different length.

Since most antennas are not the full length of the frequency, i.e. CB radio antennas, they are cut to a length that is normally 1/2 the true wavelength or 1/4 the wavelenth, etc. Antennas that are proper ratios of the original frequency resonate in electrical harmonics of the original frequency.

Now, in a TV antenna, only one radial is the active frequency, and the other radials act as directors or reflectors. That is why you turn an antenna to point a certain direction...because the other radials make the antenna directional. An other important consideration that also affects the signal is polarity.

In cellphones, the basic principals still apply. Its antenna is designed to be an optimal length (electronically) to match the signals used in cellular communication. These are often very different. The antenna sticker you are speaking of might work, but only if it were specifically placed in relationship to the existing antenna so that it might resonate as a reflector with the active element. And, if it weren't exact, then you would actually lose signal since it would act as a shield to the antenna since it serves both receiving and transmitting functions.

I've built a lot of antennas in my lifetime for my radio gear, from the HF, VHF, and UHF operating range, and I am telling you those things are crap. And stop and think about this: Every manufacturer is competeing against every other to give you the absolute best device for the money...if those plastic foil antennas were worth anything, don't you think they would have been built into the thing to begin with?

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box for now...but those thing absolutely hit a raw nerve with me!

Rich

BTW, that is not to say you cannot improve your signal, you can. But you need to use either an antenna that has more gain, normally by amplifying the signal it receives and rebroadcasting, or by collecting more of the electrical signal, such as you see with parabolic dishs that collect the signal and focus it through relection to a central point...

Rich

Thanks, Rich, for your insight. Now that you mention it, I remember being outdoors with my SWR meter years ago trimming 1/8" off at a time from my quarter wave base-loaded CB antenna, so I appreciate what you are saying.

I have never noticed any improvement on the cell phone, either.

case closed on another wild hair!!