Extending the range of a WiFi stick adapter

I relocated some of my networking gear and by doing that one of my pc’s found itself in a blind spot of the wireless network. I decided to try and see if I can extend the range of the usb wireless adapter it uses. I had a few antennas available but unfortunately the usb adapter didn’t have a connector. I decided to solder the antenna wire directly:

WiFi Adapter PCB next to an antenna and it’s plastic shell

First I pried open the usb adapter and located the internal antenna pads. With this particular adapter the internal antenna is composed by the two spiral tracks at the right.

WiFi Adapter PCB next to an antenna cable cut and prepared to be soldered

I cut the connector and stripped some of the insulation. After that I separated the core from the shielding and striped some of the core insulation.

WiFi Adapter PCB next to an antenna and it’s plastic shell

Then I soldered the middle lead to one of the antenna pads and the shielding wire to the metal housing.

I didn’t do any special tests but the change was that from dropping the connection every 2 minutes and running at 11Mbps now the adapter maintains a stable connection at 54Mbps