How To Add An External Antenna To AirPort Base Station

An anonymous reader writes "I came across this article yesterday on how to add an external antenna to an airport base station 2.0 in order to extend its range. Takes about 20-30 mins to complete and with the instructions is very easy."

Comments

Possible for version 1.0, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a tutorial to get external antenna for the first generation Airport Base station:
http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Airpo rt.html

Better tutorial, better pics

[Sillypuddy]

http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/ExtendedExtreme/ Also tells you the difference between the modem version and the regular version of the airport extreme -joe

Re:Or you could buy what you need

[YouHaveSnail]

Or if you want to extend the range of the AirPort 802.11b base station that you already own, and whose warrantee has very likely already expired, then that too is your business.

It's useful to point out that the performance of any 802.11[abg] base station, Bluetooth node, cell phone, cordless phone, or really any RF device depends an awful lot on the environment in which it operates. Obstacles, reflections, and interference from other devices all play a role. So your AirPort base station may work great when you bring it home, but not so great when you move to a different apartment with different walls. Adding an antenna to your existing unit may improve the performance for a lot less money than adding another base station or replacing your entire network with AirPort Extreme.

Re:Why not Dr. Bott?

[gdarklighter]

And that would be all well and good if he was using the upper end Airport Extreme base station. He is using an Airport Base Station 2.0, which does not have an external antenna port.

Re:Hmm

[Phroggy]

Actually Yikes, Yosemite and Sawtooth were internal code-names, never intended to be used by the public. The official public names of Yikes and Sawtooth names are "PowerMac G4 (PCI Graphics)" and "PowerMac G4 (AGP Graphics)" respectively, and the systems are distinguished by the orientation of the headphone and microphone jacks on the back (horizontal or vertical, I forget which is which). And, the code-name "Yikes" actually did make sense - Sawtooth was supposed to be the motherboard they used when the G4 was introduced, but Sawtooth wasn't ready yet, and Steve Jobs wanted to ship, so they quickly figured out how to throw a G4 processor onto a motherboard designed for a G3. Within a few months, they were replaced by Sawtooth systems. If you know anything about Steve Jobs, you'll understand why they'd call it "Yikes!" He has a reputation for throwing things at people when he's not happy.

The decision to ship the G4 early was widely regarded as a mistake, since Motorola wasn't anywhere near ready to supply sufficient quantities. I don't recall the result of Apple's lawsuit against Motorola for that.