SB3 with rabbit ears!

[DCtoDaylight]

Thought that someone might like to see what an SB3 with external antenna's looked like, so here's my Easter weekend project!

I wanted to put a Squeeze box out back in my work shed, but was only getting about 30% signal strength, leading to way too many dropouts... Installing these larger external antenna's raised the signal strength to ~60%, and seem to have cured the problem. Testing is still ongoing, but if these don't cure the problem, I can easily hook up a higher gain antenna, now that the connections are external!

Cheers,

Dave

[Skunk]

Great job on the factory look. I personally would have tried using a Pringles can, but different strokes I suppose :-)

[peterw]

How about a picture of the back?

I admire you hardware hackers; I would much sooner set up a DD-WRT bridge than take a Dremel and soldering iron to my Squeezebox. :-)

[DCtoDaylight]

Here's a photo of the back, I removed one of the antenna's so you can more easily see the sma plug.

In fact, only a small amount of soldering was involved, none of it directly related to the antennas.

The mini-pci card that houses the wlan circuitry uses u.fl connectors on the antenna coax. I simply unplugged and removed the internal antennas and plugged in u.fl to sma cables. Two holes drilled in the back for the sma connectors, and that part of the mod was complete!

The need for soldering showed up when I tried to put it all back together! There's a large capacitor on the top edge of the SB3 main board which interfered with one of the sma connectors, so I had to re-locate it, to make a bit of room.

As for the Pringles can antenna, I'd still need an external antenna connector, so you could view this as step one! If I still have drop out problems, I may well be experimenting with directional antenna construction in the future! Only I'll probably build the coffee can antenna, because I'm not fond of Pringles but certainly drink too much coffee!

Cheers,
Dave

[Skunk]

Only I'll probably build the coffee can antenna, because I'm not fond of Pringles but certainly drink too much coffee!

Eww. Coffee from a can? Just kidding, 'too much coffee' is an oxymoron to me, and it's _all_ good.

I've thought of turning my metal trash can into an antenna that will reach the two nearby coffee shops, so I can have free internet. Does the law of diminishing returns come into play here WRT the size of the antenna?

[4mula1]

I've thought of turning my metal trash can into an antenna that will reach the two nearby coffee shops, so I can have free internet. Does the law of diminishing returns come into play here WRT the size of the antenna?

Perhaps, Skunk, you need to look into a wok antenna. Much prettier than a trash can (unless you're Oscar the Grouch).

http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

[sataylor56]

I was having a lot of trouble with stuttering when playing my 48KHz/24 bit FLAC files. The 44.1/16 FLAC files were usually OK. So I figured I was marginal on signal strength. I modified my Squeezebox to add the external whip antennas and now the problem seems to have been solved. I drilled the holes in the back slightly lower, so I didn't have to move the capacitor. It was very easy to do this modification.