Some photos of removed Antenna.
A build thread would be good, did you take any more pictures as you did the mod?
There is a similar thread
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Unfortunately I didn’t, TBH I had the external antenna kit nearly a month before I talked myself into doing it. There’s loads of YouTube stuff out there, most real horrific. Opening the case is the only hard part really, so as not to leave a mark. I used a plastic trim puller and old credit card. The kit I used fitted a treat. No excess co-ax etc. Every cover, fitting and screw removed went back in. Cover the work area with bubble wrap and soft link to protect screen… Took me an hour. The case snaps back together perfectly. If there’s a down side? Remember to connect antennas before turning the Tx on… You know before messing about with it indoors. I don’t know if the software inside is clever enough to know if no antenna is attached and not transmit. Don’t want to try it for obvious reasons!
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@Kellybob
Just out of curiosity is that how the join sits after installation ? Or does it need clipping back down / in, as I see it sits a little prouder, again just curious 
Thanks Kellybob.
still not clear how the solder joint looks(because the photo is out of focus)
looking at it it looks like a big blob of solder
the shield probably is soldered to the back
looking at the inside on youtube it looks like the plastic did not interlock.
maybe it just needs a tiny sqeeze from bootm to top and it will click. if not something is blocking
It snapped back together as it was when taken apart. The seem all around is equal and there was a firm clicked in place. I swear I have OCD so believe me it would stress me!
ok clear.
one last question. can you measure the thickness of the coax on those default antenna’s?
Out of curiosity what are the replacement antennas?
From memory, probably a tad larger… If they are it’s minimal. I was concerned they may not be long enough offering them up against the case. They are perfect length.
i bought the same kit as you have installed. HX-link antenna’s
i however used other pigtails (1.13 rp-sma standard type)
tested it with a K-II meter and the antenna’s seem to send/receive.
no i have to wait for nice flying weather to see if the range/stability has improved
RU running FCC or EU? I am told there is significant improvement even sticking on EU.
FCC
in EU mode i could fly 600-700 meter in one direction before having serious signal loss.
When flying in another direction without many buildings i could go 1.5KM
in FCC mode i could fly the same 600-700 meter in one direction before having serious signal loss.
When flying in another direction without many buildings i could go 2.5KM
so it looks like when something is disturbing the signal more power will not help
i will lfy the same routes with the external antenna’s to see if things improved or not.
also when testing you need to select either 2.5 or 5ghz upfront to make sure you test the right band
i was told the rc does not switch between bands once you are flying(strange)
Yes, there seems some debate as to if and when bands are switched… With external antenna in a rural area in FCC I regularly hit 13000 ft (don’t do km) still on 5 bars. I always check the flights with Airdata to check what’s going on. Don’t like to push further for battery reasons! If the extended battery was cheaper, would like to try one. I never think to check what band the Drone has chosen and don’t think Airdata logs it?
Most know on here that I’m really sceptical when it comes to claims about antenna performance, that and I’m also an argumentative bugger, so I had a look at a thread that was linked in an earlier post by @Sparkyws. In the video the internals of the replacement antenna are shown.
The circuit board is fairly standard, having a slotted dipole for 2.4GHz and a single radiator for 5GHz, as in the diagram below.
However I don’t know what the purpose of the coiled wire soldered to the board serves as it appears to short the two slotted elements and would most likely throw off the impedance and add unwanted reactance, creating losses and impairing efficiency. I personally would like to see the results obtained with a Vector Network Analyser.
The quoted gains are something I would also question. 6dBi is both not great and likely exaggerated. A vanilla dipole has a gain of 2.1dBi. To obtain double the range of the standard antennas you’d be wanting a gain figure of at least 8.5dBi, and that’s assuming zero losses which is not easily achieved.
If I were to go to the trouble of hacking my remote I’d consider using two linear dual band patch antennas. They’d also provide the benefit that you could probably keep them connected when the controller is in the case, mitigating the risk of turning your controller on without the antennas connected and risking permanent damage to the controller.
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i wonder what would be in those hx-link antenna’s
here are photo’s of my controller
regarding those pigtail RP-SMA connectors
i see a lot of people installing them with all the rings but then you are left with only a small thread and connections are not optimal
depth of the antenna is 2.6mm
depth of the rp-sma connector is 2mm
so for optimal contact(screw the antenna all the way in until it goes no further) you need 4.6mm
This means the sma part which sticks out needs to be 4.6mm, you can not get this lenght if you use both the splitring and the other ring.
maybee it does not matter much but this could be the cause when people have bad range with external antenna’s
the HX-link antenna connector is only 2.6mm deep but other wifi antenna’s i have are at least 3.2mm deep.
if you have such an antenna and the sma part only sticks out 4mm than you are left with only 0.8mm contact space
the sma connector on the pigtail which came with the hx-link antenna(the one kellybob installed) does not have this problem and is 5.4mm long. more than enough
g
regarding switching on the controller without the antenna’s
i have noticed that the controller is not sending out anything unless it starts connecting to the drone.
even when it is not connected to the drone and you switch on wifi nothing is radiated
it looks like the controller is using a different antenna for wifi otherwise something must radiate something right
anyway always save to first connect antenna’s before switching on.
The air3 controller(looks like a RC controller)seems to have external antenna’s
i wonder if they are going to replace the rc controller totally with this one