WIFI not working - bad antenna design.

[alfrankgit]

Yesterday I got my BTT Pad 7 and tried for hours to get it to connect to my WIFI properly and stay connected for more than a few seconds: no chance!

As I've been an IT service technician since 1988 I tried everything: new OS image, all kinds of authentication and WIFI generation settings, connecting via nmtui in the linux shell. Nothing brought me any closer to a stable connection, so I reset everything to the state it was before which works for all my other, very diverse, equipment. The Pad 7 still failed to stay connected.

Today I took a simple 2.4 GHz WIFI antenna home with me from work, removed the heat sink from the CB1 module, unplugged the internal WIFI antenna, plugged mine in, put the heat sink back on, turned the Pad 7 on: it instantly connected to my WIFI router.

And it doesn't disconnect anymore and has good ping times.

Now I got curious and removed the back panel of the Pad 7 (caution: remove µSD card first), disconnected the speakers and took a look at the printed foil circuit antenna.

I couldn't believe what I saw: the antenna trace (the "snake" in the lower horizontal part of the foil) is connected directly to the GND surface (big vertical rectangle in the top part), see the first picture.

To be sure I measured the resistance between the shielding and the core of the antenna cable: 0 ohms, see second picture.

ARE YOU SERIOUS???

Please revise your antenna design ASAP or your customer service will be flooded with WIFI problems!