Vostro 1400 WWAN Slot Antennas?

Will the WWAN antennas in the Vostro 1400 work with a WLAN card?

I ask because I was going to put 2 wireless cards in my system. One for A/B/G/N and one for better battery life and range using the Atheros chipset.

I have been doing some looking and all EV-DO cards on Dell's site say they support 50 ohm antennas and I have found like 15 external antennas made for A/B/G/N networks that all say they have 50 ohm impedance. I don't know anything about antennas and such but the pictures I have seen of the Dell 1420 have a Grey and White wire going to the WWAN slot and a Black, Grey and White going to the WLAN slot so I am thinking that the Grey and White wires are just split and go to the same antenna in the panel. It seems less likely that there is 5 antennas total in the LCD panel but maybe I'm wrong about that part.

 

There are 5 antennas in the panel, I actually have my lcd bezel off at the moment, as Im waiting for replacement lcd #4, but anyways. The antenna wires for white and gray/white stripe run up the left side. The antenna wires for black and gray/black stripe run up the right side. The solid gray antenna wire is located at the bottom of the bezel. All wires terminate to their own metal antenna connector at the top of the screen, except for the solid gray antenna that terminates at an antenna connector on the bottom.

Hope this helps.

sOnIc

 

Helps a bit. Do they all look identical in everyway besides color? Are the ends the exact same plugs?

 

So where blue antenna for WPAN goes?

 

Havent even seen a blue antenna. But, the wires are identical plug to the mini card and everything. the only difference is where the antenna wires terminate inside the bezel. They have different shaped antenna ends. Maybe for different types of reception. I can almost bet that you could use these wwan antenna wires as antennas for the wlan. You might not get as good reception as the design of the antenna end maybe for a different radio wave or whatever. Good luck.

sOnIc

 

OK well assuming it won't work could I easily replace them? I have 2 antennas from another laptop that look just like flat little things taped onto the plastic behind the LCD and have wires leading down. Is that how the Dell's is?

 

Try it, Ill bet it will work. The antennas themselves are designed uniquely to fit in the bezel I think, so it probly have nothing to do with reception for that particular card. I think things will work fine, but I doubt another antenna end will fit in the bezel, as its sort of tight in there already and soldered.

sOnIc