Replacing airport antenna on eMac

Question

My daughter was having trouble getting a good wireless connection with her eMac. We took the airport extreme card out and notice that the small copper wires coming out of the connection end of the antenna were frayed. We tried to straighten them but they broke off. No she can get no wireless connection unless the base station is sitting next to her computer. Can I get a replacement antenna and is something I can replace myself?

Answer 1

If the connector end of the antenna has broken off, that's a difficult repair at best. The connection you can get as is if what the Airport card itself can pick up, minus its antenna. The Airpirt antenna is a wire look running aling the edge of the front of the chassis; replacement would require disassembling the eMac pretty throughly. That's not even mentioned in the eMac service manuals that I can remember. Opening up the eMac to the level required to get at the antenna cable would also expose you to the dangerous voltages held by the CRT/analog assembly (especially the CRT yoke). Unless you are really, really confident with using a discharge tool and with taking computers apart (easy) and getting them back together (no so easy), you may want to search "bridge connector" instead. That would cost you less than a proper Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP). I doubt you'd want to jury-rig your own external wireloop using the broken-off connector and a Dremel tool to cut a hole near the optical tray drawer to pass the replacement wire outside the eMac's Airport slot.