Database Users

Anyone Killed an 8525 by using an Ext Antenna?

I read in these threads about using an external antenna. Someone posted Radioshack# 17-345 Universal Antenna plus a 17-349 adapter pigtail to connect the 8525.
I was planning to use this in a sports car with bluetooth so I could set the phone in the back.
The short story is, I uncorked the external antenna port and plugged in this antenna. I got no signal bars. I disconnected the antenna....now no signal bars where I used to get 4.
I pulled the battery, let it sit, same problem. Pulled sim and used a different phone, 4 bars.
So this external antenna seems to have killed my radio!

Cell phone today with just the handset alone is almost good for anywhere you go will get you a decent signal strength. Unless under extreme condition such in a forest or up in the mountain where you might need to pull in a stronger signal, there's where those external antenna comes in play. Most ppl like me do not use external antenna while in car. There's just no point of using an external antenna in car. Not sure how you fried the radio, is this some kind the amplified antenna?
RemE said:
I read in these threads about using an external antenna. Someone posted Radioshack# 17-345 Universal Antenna plus a 17-349 adapter pigtail to connect the 8525.
I was planning to use this in a sports car with bluetooth so I could set the phone in the back.
The short story is, I uncorked the external antenna port and plugged in this antenna. I got no signal bars. I disconnected the antenna....now no signal bars where I used to get 4.
I pulled the battery, let it sit, same problem. Pulled sim and used a different phone, 4 bars.
So this external antenna seems to have killed my radio!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

No, it's a passive antenna, simple design about the size of a pack of cards. I simply plugged it in and then saw no bars, just searching. I un-plugged it and it was toast.
I believe that the 8525 connector disconnects the internal antenna when a external antenna is connected. I also believe that that connector was somehow damaged by the external antenna and now there is no antenna connected.
I won't be trying this again!

RemE said:
I read in these threads about using an external antenna. Someone posted Radioshack# 17-345 Universal Antenna plus a 17-349 adapter pigtail to connect the 8525.
I was planning to use this in a sports car with bluetooth so I could set the phone in the back.
The short story is, I uncorked the external antenna port and plugged in this antenna. I got no signal bars. I disconnected the antenna....now no signal bars where I used to get 4.
I pulled the battery, let it sit, same problem. Pulled sim and used a different phone, 4 bars.
So this external antenna seems to have killed my radio!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just killed my Hermes using a Radoshack external antenna adapter, too. It worked great for about 5 minutes, giving me 5 extra bars, and then the cell signal went dead. I haven't been able to get it to find a signal any more.

Do you think it was physically damaged? Broke a solder point pushing the connector on or off- or it somehow shorted out the device by drawing too much power or something? My reception sucks in my new apt here in Shanghai and I really want to get an antenna for use while at home, but I don't want to kill my Hermes!

Did you try a Hard reset - after backing up of course...
Other than that you may need to pull you Hermes apart and see if the radio antenna has popped out (unlikely,but....). For any manuals go here - http://michael-channon.spaces.live.com/
You may get help from our HTC Hardware Guru, Mike Channon...
Cheers...

Kaiser's external antenna ports?

Hi,
Have a Kaiser on the way and want to have an external GPS antenna and an external phone antenna ready to go when it gets here.
But I can't find anywhere what types of antenna sockets the Kaiser has for these two antennas?
Does anyone know???
Thanks.
Great forum, by the way!

As far as i can see it only has a socket for a GPS antenna so i assume this would probably act as both although not sure
you can get the official antenna from expansys
http://www.expansys.com/htc/p_htc_item.aspx?i=151025

I can confirm spooki37 says, from what I can tell, there is only one port. It is located the rubber GPS stamp that is on the back of the device. eBay has them shipping to the US for about $15 - $20 non-oem from China.

When I remove the battery cover, it sure looks like there are two jacks. I too thought the other must be for external Cellular antenna.

So does anyone know what the 2nd port is used for?

Whatever you do dont use the second port because it will damage your phone. I plugged an external antenna into my original phone and when I removed it the phone had no signal at all. The only way to get any signal was to use an external antenna after that.
That second port is an antenna port but htc doesnt support any antenna for it and is supposed to be used for debugging purposes only.

I use an external antenna all the time with mine... (TyTN II / Kaiser) works ok.. not great, but gets me one more bar, and seems to hold the signal better in a low signal area.
I use this adapter:
http://www.wpsantennas.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=441
with one of their antennas.
I don't have any problems with signal after I disconnect it, but i'm pretty careful with connect/disconnect, and I cradle it while connected. I bet a little torque would probably damage the connection which would probably damage the internal antenna connection as well.

So you remove the battery cover and plug that antenna into the smaller of the two ports? Ive damaged 2 phones trying external antennas and so have others. This one is a htc titan http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/ppc-6800-xv6800/96140-phone-signal-horrible.html and theres more reports like this one.

Ren13B said:
So you remove the battery cover and plug that antenna into the smaller of the two ports? .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually just pull my battery cover off, carefully seat the antenna into the port on the left, and then cradle the the thing.
I've done this with this phone, a moto blackjack, and at least two other moto phones in the past, and never had an issue. Again, though... I've pretty much ALWAYS immobilized the phone while it's got the antenna jack plugged in. I actually try to do the same when USB is in too... the boards inside these tiny devices are too thin and the amount of torque you can apply accidentally is quite high... best to be safe... but I get intermittent signal where I use it most frequently, so I accept the risk.

Thanks!
KarlFlick said:
I use an external antenna all the time with mine... (TyTN II / Kaiser) works ok.. not great, but gets me one more bar, and seems to hold the signal better in a low signal area.
I use this adapter:
http://www.wpsantennas.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=441
with one of their antennas.
I don't have any problems with signal after I disconnect it, but i'm pretty careful with connect/disconnect, and I cradle it while connected. I bet a little torque would probably damage the connection which would probably damage the internal antenna connection as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the answer I needed - thanks heaps!
So obviously it takes the some patch lead as the Tytn. In that case I'll just get a Tytn patch lead off ebay and hope for the best.
The owner's manual I found for the Tytn says you can use the antenna plug, so they obviously thought it was safe then, but maybe hid it on this model because of a few reported breakages. I'm going to use mine only occasionally and in a cradle, so I hope I'll be OK if I'm very careful. Maybe I'll never end up using it given the risk...
Another option would be one of those universal antenna leads. They clip on the back of the phone and work by an induction coil. Their performance is very variable - mine works OK (+1 bar) on a friend's phone, but seems to make no difference on my phone.

I want to add this as well: plugging in an external antenna can damage your phone. I have plugged a wilson antenna into my 8925 and now my reception is extremely poor... I am not sure of the cause, or how to fix it.. just hope to help people avoid this.

We have the 8925 here at our office and have found that the port on the right side is for GPS only. The left port is for cellular reception.
We have not damaged the phone that we have here and have had the 8925 for about 6 months.

There are a few issues with using external antennas:
First of all, the connector must be properly sized for the phone.
With some device/connector combinations it is normal for the connector to appear to not be fully seated. If you try to force the connector on further you can do permanent damage to the phone.
In the phone there is a tiny mechanical switch that gets tripped when you plug the external antenna in. This physically disconnects the internal antenna and connects the phone's radio to the antenna port. Sometimes this switch gets stuck in the port position, so you get poor performance when you disconnect the external antenna. This is especially common with CDMA Motorola V3 models.
-Jay

any body uses a wifi external antenna????

How hard is it to fix this "switch"? I have a kaiser that will only work with an external antenna after using one. Port isnt damaged as far as I can tell and ive never had problems with external antennas with other phones.
Jay2TheRescue said:
There are a few issues with using external antennas:
First of all, the connector must be properly sized for the phone.
With some device/connector combinations it is normal for the connector to appear to not be fully seated. If you try to force the connector on further you can do permanent damage to the phone.
In the phone there is a tiny mechanical switch that gets tripped when you plug the external antenna in. This physically disconnects the internal antenna and connects the phone's radio to the antenna port. Sometimes this switch gets stuck in the port position, so you get poor performance when you disconnect the external antenna. This is especially common with CDMA Motorola V3 models.
-Jay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

DaMilky said:
How hard is it to fix this "switch"? I have a kaiser that will only work with an external antenna after using one. Port isnt damaged as far as I can tell and ive never had problems with external antennas with other phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never actually had this happen to any of my phones, so I don't know how hard it is to fix. If the external antenna was forced onto the connector you may have to send the phone in for service to have the port replaced. The only other thing I can think of is to put a small amount of contact cleaner on the port itself, the gently work it in with the external antenna connector. This may loosen the switch and let it return to the internal antenna position if this is your problem. In all likelihood I'd say that a warranty exchange is probably your best bet.
-Jay

has anyone notised a 3rd port? its between the camera and the speaker and slightly higer than the other 2 I bet that ones for wifi at 1st glance I thought it was a screw.

I don't understand why the port were designed in the first place when things seem to be such a useless purpose ...etc
comes with INTERNAL GPS ... so why the need for EXTERNAL ??? and if you do need to use it ... it is delicate and chances are, you're screwed and damage it !!
so why bother designed it ?? <scratching head> !!!

External antennae that are properly sized for the operational wavelength will always have higher effective gain than any built-on antenna that is capable of fitting on a typical handheld device.
The External GPS antenna has 27 dB Gain (typical)... I cannot find specifications for the internal antenna on our Kaiser's, but I am willing to bet they are probably at best a unity antenna, maybe 3db on the good side.
That means you will recieve SIGNIFICANTLY signal strength and more satellites when you are doing anything involving GPS, and weather, antenna position, and all standard environmental factors will have significantly less effect on your GPS activities.
The same goes for an external antenna for the cellular portion. The internal radio boosts power output when it has degraded reception which means when you're in a poor reception area, you burn more battery doing the same things you typically do.
A "gain" vehicular antenna directly connected to your phone will increase battery life when using wireless connections to the cellular network, as well as provide you good reception where you would otherwise have poor to none.
Of course, if you live in an urban area, this is probably of no use to you... but in a built up area with many large buildings around, you may not have as good GPS resolution and reception as you could with an external antenna..
*
The primary reason they put these on there is moreso for diagnostic purposes probably... hook it up to a freq counter and/or spectrum analyzer and you can tell that the radio is actually putting out what frequency and it's strength as well. Without those, there's no external way to ensure transmission is occuring without possible interference.

mech_supernova said:
has anyone notised a 3rd port? its between the camera and the speaker and slightly higer than the other 2 I bet that ones for wifi at 1st glance I thought it was a screw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've examined this very closely under a bright light, and I have concluded that it is a screw with a Torx head.

Will this Hardware Tweak really work for boosting wifi ?

Hello
i´have found this site http://pockethacks.com/boost-wifi-signal-on-your-pocket-pc/.
Does anyone think this will work ?
My problem is that my AP is upstairs (Level 2), my room is on Level 0, with my MDA Pro i get the wifi signal only on the toilet(!), but i want it in my other rooms too.
And i think, if this Hardware Modification will work it will solve my problem.
If it works......what do you think?
thanks for answers
asid

Yes asid, anything that by any means "boost" the signal -in this case by adding extra gain using another antenna- should work, how good? Well, that's another story.
Anyway, I considered myselft the idea of directly change the internal antennas (not just the WiFi oen, but also the GSM and the BT) with another ones made by me with fractal shapes, but I sold my good old uni, so, the rest is history...

Done it and it works very well!
I came across your post and had a little look at the tweak, seemed relativly straight forward and i just so happened to have an old nokia to pull apart for the arial.
The tweak took about 20 mins with the only things to watch out for being:...
the forth torque screw hidden under a tiny red sticker (you will see it! dont worry).
You need a very thin guaged wire as there is very little space inside.
After the tweak i have found a greatly improved wifi range anda lot less signal drop in general.
Well worth it, especially as you dont really need anything more than a t6 screwdriver, a small headed phillips and a very thin wire.

What if we connect the wifi antenna to the headphone socket? So then, if we need a boost to the wifi signal, we will plug in our headsets, and it will be an 1m long wifi antenna? Is that possible?
Is there any risk connecting the antenna to the headphone socket?

toxicdog said:
What if we connect the wifi antenna to the headphone socket? So then, if we need a boost to the wifi signal, we will plug in our headsets, and it will be an 1m long wifi antenna? Is that possible?
Is there any risk connecting the antenna to the headphone socket?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the headphone socket is not linked to wifi at all so this won't work.... and another thing is you may short circuit your device by plugging that in....

rajivshahi said:
the headphone socket is not linked to wifi at all so this won't work.... and another thing is you may short circuit your device by plugging that in....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just thinking on connecting one pin of the socket, and the wifi antenna together, with a wire, inside the device.
But if that makes a short circuit, its a bad idea.

Yes it may work.
I remember that originally mobile phones used this method to boost their signal. However, that was soon noted to be a bad idea, as it meant the radio signal was going straight into your ear ! I don't know if wifi is any less worse.
As for short circuit, I would think the worse that would happen is that you'd loose the signal, but the effect would not be permanent once you remove the connection again (however, I obviously cannot guarantee this)

Yea the problem is Uni having wireless b not g so i personally have this problem as some of the new modems are only g and a compatible ......
wish we could change the wifi with the new hardware from newnew phones....

Or i can use sd card with g capabilities but has to compromise with the storage then....

rajivshahi said:
Yea the problem is Uni having wireless b not g so i personally have this problem as some of the new modems are only g and a compatible ......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uni can be made 802.11g compatable (but will not have the g speeds)

-Jonny- said:
Uni can be made 802.11g compatable (but will not have the g speeds)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it a hardware change or software... i remember applying some software named wirelesslanbgon which didn't seem to work .....

It's a registry setting, as I was led to believe the Uni is capable of connecting to 802.11g. I thought all ROM builders put it in their ROM. Hold on, I'll see what I can dig up...
Ok, hopefully this will work - you'll still get 802.11b speeds (11 Mbit/s)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMM\TIACXWLN1\PARMS: dot11SupportedRateMask=1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMM\TIACXWLN1\PARMS: dot11SupportedRateMaskG=8
then soft-reset
Let us know if it works (I've got 802.11b router, so can't test it)

Did anyone ever test this to see if it works?

Problematic ethernet cable conectivity. Help needed

I have 3G internet router/receiver in one of the rooms of my house, which has the best 3G reception. There is WIFI router in my living room. I have in-wall cables with ethernet sockets in every room, and all cables come into on "routing box" where I can use patch cables or powered switch to route and share internet connection. So 3G router in one room is connected with WIFI router in another room by a help of a patch cable.
1 week ago I noticed that there is no WIFI connection. I tried lots of things untill I found out that if i unplug the cable from the WIFI router and plug it into my laptop, the LED of the ethernet socket is blinking red, meaning there is no internet connection. If i plug the cable directly into 3G router, the internet is fine. I replaced 4 patch cables and the result was the same, no internet. Then I tried to use my WIFI router in between of the two rooms routing, just one cable went into Internet IN and another went out of Ethernet out (there are 4 of these). This way the LED of the ethernet socket was blinking green and the internet was fine.
Could anyone explain me what's wrong with my ethernet cables? Or what else could it be? Why all of a sudden perfect connection stopped working while none of the cables were cut off? Is there signal degradation and WIFI router works like signal amplificator? I am a no networking specialist. Please help me to find an answer so I would know what to do.
Thanks

Anyone? please

camspy said:
Anyone? please
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
unfortunately i dont know i am sorry

camspy said:
Anyone? please
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the road right now. Give me a couple hours for travel. Will summarize what i understand works and does not work for you. We can then try a couple things to isolate the issue.
Still Charged Up

OK. Tell me what you've tried and works, as well as what you've tried and fails.
You've plugged your laptop into your 3G router and you can get to the internet.
You've connected your WiFi router to your 3G router by physically moving it next to your 3G router. You've then tested your laptop, connected wirelessly to the WiFi and via ethernet to your WiFi router and in both cases they work (assuming your WiFi router has ethernet ports.
If everything above is correct and functional, then yes - the problem is your wiring and/or hub/switch that connects all of your cabling.
Put your WiFi router back where it belongs. Patch your 3G directly to your WiFi and test again. You've eliminated everything but the wires. Does it work? If so, then it should be your hub/switch. Doesn't work? Patch your laptop to the 3G at the patch panel. Does it work? If not, then it's your connectors and/or cabling between the 3G router and your patch panel.
Hung any pictures lately where a nail could have penetrated a cable? What's changed?
Eliminate as much a possible at first and then add as little as possible and you will find the problem.

OK, i tried wiring my own LAN cables to try things out. What i found is that one part of the problem was that i needed to use one crossed patch cable, straight one had no signal at all if used.
The other part of the problem was that when i tried all combinations, the cable that was plugged into laptop was showing binking red. But my 3G router was showing that there was connection. Apparently the sites were loading in browser, but very slowly. But when i tried testing with speedtest.net, it couldn't pass ping test...
So, i think it could be the bad/crossed wiring in one of the wall cables and it is impossible to test and find exact answer without a tester. So I have ordered a good LAN tester that is capable to detect bad wiring so i will know what custom cable i could make. It should arrive in a week or so.
Thanks for your time and help

Confused here. You said it was working up to two weeks ago. Unless you replaced the ends, you can't go from not needing a crossover to needing one. I don't know what kind of gear you have, but some equipment allows you to change the port configuration so that you do or don't need a crossover. Usually this is at the hub/switch level. I've never heard of consumer equipment requiring a crossover. Are you sure you haven't made any config changes to your 3G router, WiFi router, hub/switch, or even laptop?
I don't know that I helped, but I'm glad you found a solution that works. Cheers!

I didn't make any changes on routers ends, but there was one day when there was no electicity for like few minutes. You think it could make some harm to routers settings?

Assuming power loss outside your control then there could have been a spike either before loss of power or when power restored. Not likely reset but it can't hurt to check. What OS are you running on laptop? Have you tried deleting your wireless config on laptop and recreating?
Everything is a process of elimination. Asking questions since I get the impression you still have a problem.
Still Charged Up

Yes i still have a problem, and both the routers work fine when they are close to each other connected with a short patch cable without using wall cables. I revised all settings on them and didn't find anything that could be wrong.
So, i think i gave up for a week or so, till i get the cable tester which will be able to show me the truth about wiring of wall cables

Very strange it's the cable but it sure looks that way. Please let me know how it ends up - you've got me hooked.
Still Charged Up

OK, sure
http://www.peaktech.de/productdetai...er-mit-digital-multimeter/produkt/p-3365.html
this is what i bought and waiting to receive, i hope it will show the situation

Hey Reilly1812,
I have news, I tested the cables and there's a problem in one wall cable.
The tester I was using was testing all fibers in a cable one by one and I found that the fibers 2 and 5 are looped/connected together, as if testing fiber 2 it shows 2 and 5 active in tester, when I was testing 5th fiber again 2 and 5 was active...
Is it possible to get 100% OK internet over these cables and how, if yes?
Thanks

Not all pairs are used, but I can't tell you which ones. Unless someone driving nails/drilling I would think the cable ends more likely the culprit and I would think about cutting off the ends and retesting. cable might actually be ok.
Still Charged Up

Yes, I See

I have success here. I found info that 4,5,7 and 8 wires are unused. So I crossed 2 with 8 in two patch cables and everything works now

Good to hear. You just need to know what caused the cable failure in the first place so it doesn't happen again.
Still Charged Up

I as you think that the problem is more likely in one of the in wall sockets. But making custom patch cables seemed an easier task for me, so i went this route.

Don't you just love this stuff? Cheers!
Still Charged Up

[Q] Connecting to WiFi via external USB dongle - Is it possible?

After having my N7 serviced for being stuck in APX mode, they returned it to me with faulty WiFi antenna. I wasn't in the mood to go though all that trouble the very day I got my N7 back since they kept it for more than a month before they returned it "fixed" to me so I didn't send it back to ASUS again.
So... cutting to the point ... I broke the wifi pins on the motherboard while trying to bend them a little and now I can only connect to a network if I literary put the tablet on top of the router.
I want to know if it's somehow possible to use an external wifi usb adapter to connect to networks and use it as an alternative to the internal wifi.
I know there are some options to make an external wireless device recognized with some kernels out there but not for general internet browsing, rather for developing reasons.

nethervor said:
After having my N7 serviced for being stuck in APX mode, they returned it to me with faulty WiFi antenna. I wasn't in the mood to go though all that trouble the very day I got my N7 back since they kept it for more than a month before they returned it "fixed" to me so I didn't send it back to ASUS again.
So... cutting to the point ... I broke the wifi pins on the motherboard while trying to bend them a little and now I can only connect to a network if I literary put the tablet on top of the router.
I want to know if it's somehow possible to use an external wifi usb adapter to connect to networks and use it as an alternative to the internal wifi.
I know there are some options to make an external wireless device recognized with some kernels out there but not for general internet browsing, rather for developing reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you know of a Wifi Dongle compatible with USB-OTG and were willing to write the app/driver or kernel module specifically to work with that dongle, then yes it's possible, just a matter of how much work do you want to put into it.
(As there is usually never a reason to plug in an external Wifi adapter when the internal one exists, I doubt there's already a pre-made kernel module for one).

nethervor said:
...dongle...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stop oppressing me

Well, I took it to a local electronics store and they said they are able to solder the pieces together. Hopefully I'll have an N7 with a fully working internal WiFi by the end of the day.

nethervor said:
Well, I took it to a local electronics store and they said they are able to solder the pieces together. Hopefully I'll have an N7 with a fully working internal WiFi by the end of the day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's working, let us know what the damage ($) was to have something like that done.

kbeezie said:
If it's working, let us know what the damage ($) was to have something like that done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it is working again, though not as good as before I sent it to ASUS the first time.
When they returned it, with a new motherboard, the WiFi reception was not as good. Now, the reception is as good as it was when I got it back from ASUS. So I guess, that's it's full capacity now.
Nevertheless, I can at least be a couple of rooms away from a router to get a reception. It's still a bit dodgy, but certainly existing.
The price was symbolical I guess, since it only took a few minutes for a professional to solder a couple of pieces together. They charged me 3 dollars

nethervor said:
Yes, it is working again, though not as good as before I sent it to ASUS the first time.
When they returned it, with a new motherboard, the WiFi reception was not as good. Now, the reception is as good as it was when I got it back from ASUS. So I guess, that's it's full capacity now.
Nevertheless, I can at least be a couple of rooms away from a router to get a reception. It's still a bit dodgy, but certainly existing.
The price was symbolical I guess, since it only took a few minutes for a professional to solder a couple of pieces together. They charged me 3 dollars
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder how much they'd charge to solder on a mini-antenna (but bigger or a wire that goes around the edge of the back) or something that can fit there with the back closed down on it. You know kinda like you would with GPS.

kbeezie said:
I wonder how much they'd charge to solder on a mini-antenna (but bigger or a wire that goes around the edge of the back) or something that can fit there with the back closed down on it. You know kinda like you would with GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really know what the guy did. I suggested that he used single strand wires since I lost the broken pins. But he may have improvised with some other similar pins to make the contact. And I'm not really willing to open the cover and **** it up again.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD