I got more parts in stock if anyone else needs help with this mod.
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I would like to publicly thank @lewis.heidrick for repairing my butchered hub, While trying to do this mode myself I broke the low noise CMOS voltage regulator chip on my C5. Lewis was able to replace the broken chip (which he provided) and get my C5 back in working order. For anyone considering this modification I would highly recommend letting Lewis help with this.
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I'm planning on mid-march if that works... I'll PM the details soon.
Yea, that's fine.
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I'm not sure whether I'll risk doing the antenna upgrade on mine, but just curious as to whether anyone has carried this out in the UK or EU? I'm guessing a different Z wave antenna would be needed as our Z Wave is 868MHz or is it close enough to the US Z Wave frequency to use the same parts?
TL/DR: The antenna mod improved the signal strength reported for all my Z-wave devices, but I see only a minor improvement in routing. Things seem to have less overall delay. And Hub Protect Migrate is a great feature.
I set out to do the external antenna mod myself. but I was worried about messing up my hub.
In the end I asked @lewis.heidrick to do it for me. He did a great job and it took less than a week for the hub to go from here to him and back.
I had him modify my spare C-7 and I used Hub Protect to migrate my active meshes to the backup hub. This was a mostly painless process, and everything mostly just worked. I did this to avoid re-pairing my 24 Z-wave devices, but resetting the 120 Zigbee devices around the house was much more of a chore than I expected (it took 4 days, not the 4 hours I planned). There were some hiccups I didn't expect:
- my USB Z-wave stick needed to be re-included and one lamp paired non-S0 had to be excluded and re-included
- Zigbee water sensors stopped reporting battery until I specifically removed and then paired them
- my Sylvania Zigbee light strips were very challenging to reset
- a few apps needed their credentials updated (for incoming connections)
Overall, while the migrate is a great feature and it saved me tons of work. But, I hope I never have to do one again.
Back to the mod, I did this to improve my Z-wave network, which I've always considered weak. My Zigbee network has always worked robustly, with about a dozen repeates and 100 sensors (most of which report temperature).
Before the mod I used to have 8 or 9 DIRECT devices. After, I have 10 or 11.
I have 9 Inovelli Red Dimmers that I consider the core of my Z-wave network. 2 of them sit 9 feet away from the C-7 with direct line of site. These almost always route through other dimmers that were much further away from the hub. After the antenna mod, these now sometimes go DIRECT to the hub.
This are the Z-wave status taken after the hub was up for 36 hours, left from before (Feb 4) and right from after (Feb 18): (note the last 3 devices changed order)
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I have found that, as one convert posted, it takes weeks for the mod to settle in.
I didn't get much change for the first few days. After about 2 weeks I had more DIRECT and less 9.6.
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I should have made it clear that the modded hub has been in place for 2 weeks now (Feb 4). All the improvement I've seen happened in the first week. It's been unchange for the last week. I wanted to wait a bit before reporting the result.
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Wait a while. Three months later, I'm still seeing some changes.
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Yea, devices take a while to drop their old route. Some don't like to change unless the route fails.
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Trigger those that say unknown so we can see stats on those.
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I get the point of soldering and retaining the original antenna. But is there an easy crimp/splice method to add the external antenna lead cables rather than desoldering and soldering?
Given how fine these connectors are, it would actually be far more difficult than desolder/solder.
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I agree, given how sensitive this is to loss, you'd probably be worse off with a crimped connection.
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I installed the external antenna a few weeks ago, and my HE has totally changed its behaviour, all the answer are now on-line, no more failures , and the reactions are faster.
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A recommendation, if you can't use the service of our friend @lewis.heidrick, and you don't have much practice with soldering, look for a cellular repair shop to install the antenna connector, it's not something easy as it seems.
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I didn't realize @lewis.heidrick was offering a service for this... is that true? I wish I had just shipped my hub there instead of the antennae and connectors here.. lol
To be clear, he isn't offering a "service" in the sense of a "paid for service". He is offering his time gratis and performing the modification for the cost of materials.
He is an incredibly thoughtful member of this community!
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My first attempt at soldering the plug was a failure, I even sent a picture to @lewis.heidrick and he very politely said it was a mess 
. And logically not worked the signal. I removed everything, and only in the third attempt I got something clean and almost well done 
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Instead of fixing the antenna on the HE box, I printed two 3D types of support, one that can be fixed on the wall, or one a stand, below pictures. If you want the CAD file for the printer, write me on private message and I'll send it to you, I don't know how to put it here
Or the one in the picture I posted before.
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