If you venture out to the uConsole Discord group like I do, you’ll will notice many hardware and software mods. After reading some users mods involving external antennas and internal USB SDR dongles I really wanted to try my hand at it.
I originally saw a video on YouTube by user Backofficeshow added a SDR to his uConsole using his unpopulated expansion card. Soldering to the traces that went to USB ports not being used since he had the non-4G model. I wanted to emulate that but I have the full 4G expansion card.
This made me think about using a USB hub. At first, I saw some posts saying that 2 pins on the expansion card had an extra unused USB port. (Data pins) This might have worked but as soon as I soldered to one of those pins it ripped right off the PCB. Then I observed someone who removed the type A USB on the side of the device. This being the only usable USB port, I wasn’t fully convinced that was the best way to go.
However I got the Idea to remove said port, re-wire it to connect to a USB hub then solder that hub to the board in its place.
So i started by removing the USB port on the board and soldering the the hub underneath the board. (Please pay attention to what pins go where if you wish to do this.)
From there i soldered the old USB port to one of the ports on the hub.
I then re-soldered the shielding back onto the board so that it would be fixed in place.
Used some hot glue to isolate the pins coming from the USB port.
From this point I removed the USB port and SMA antenna port from the SDR. Soldering the USB points on the SDR to my newly installed hub. I also soldered a SMA extension cable to the old pins of the antenna connector.
To have an external antenna go from the SDR to the outside of the uConsole, I removed the console connector from the 4g card. Since I only use my 4g card for data and not making calls, removing this connector isn’t important to me. But if it is to you, they’re are some places you can drill a new hole for an external SMA port.
After testing, signals came in using my D74’s antenna. I will be looking for a dedicated antenna for my application.
As for interference from the WiFi antenna…. I haven’t noticed any yet but I’m sure if I check out some frequencies close to 2.4ghz I’ll have some issues.
