Lift the stock antenna off the chassis with a spacer
The zero-cost fix: a scrap of plastic or foam tape between the foil antenna and the aluminium body, plus a re-routed lead, is worth 10–15 points of signal.
What it takes
- Disassembly
Difficulty 2 of 3 — moderate.
Details
The stock antenna is a flex sticker, and pressed against the inside of the metal shell it is detuned. Kirou put a small piece of plastic between chassis and antenna and went from 47 % to 62 % in the XFCE meter, even through walls; Zeth (30 % → 40 %) and Hector_Corea (35 % → 45 %) saw similar gains, and Hector found the antenna wants at least 1 cm of clearance. USFrozen's earlier advice was the same: mount on foam tape or a non-metallic shim, never on bare aluminium.
Draping the excess lead loosely over the compute module instead of routing it tightly, oscillot's tip, took USFrozen from −72 to −67 dBm before any hardware changed. On a CM4, do this together with dtparam=ant2.
Links
Open at Forum: Kirou's spacer result (post 109)Related mods
One line in config.txt switches a CM4 from its on-module PCB antenna to the u.FL connector the uConsole's antenna is actually plugged into.
Swap the stock foil antenna for a u.FL-to-RP-SMA pigtail, a small dual-band whip and a printed mount, with three years of measurements behind the choice.
A screw-mount SMA bulkhead passed through the case's existing cable slit and nutted from inside — an external antenna with no drilling and no printing.
A tape-on printed hinge that holds the antenna flat for carrying and folds it up, clear of the metal body, when you need the signal.
A printed replacement for the stock antenna cover that hides a full-size dual-band Wi-Fi antenna and an LTE antenna behind an engraved 'uConsole CM4' panel.
A small printed piece that keeps the Wi-Fi antenna spaced off the metal case, published on Thingiverse in January 2024.