necessity is the mother of kludge

[kirkcudbright]

I have a 3½ year old Motorola StarTAC. Nice phone in most ways, sturdy, reliable - except for the antenna. The antenna is retractable, and has this honking big coil balanced on top of a skinny little mast, protected by a collar that covers the lower 2mm of the coil. Extending the antenna doesn't affect the signal quality, and making it extendable means that it breaks, on average, every 6 months. Furthermore, the minimal collar that was there broke off about 3 months ago, so there's nothing to protect the delicate breaky bit of the antenna.

At Arisia, I buttonholed sunspiral (as he was trying to check his art out of the Art Show) to ask him about building up a new collar - I was thinking Sculpy or the like. He suggested just gluing a length of hobby tubing around the base of the antenna. I was too lame to get to a hobby store yesterday, but I noticed that a Bic pen cap fit pretty exactly over the whole antenna. I softened and flattened the clip, and glued that to the phone body for extra strength.

It's ugly, but it's holding so far. Cyanoacrylate is your friend.

Comments

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

/me bows before an honorable and excellent hack

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Looks like a good solution, as long as the antenna doesn't need to extend.