WiFi problems - installed new antenna

T

Tomcatbeer

New member
Messages
2
Grill(s) owned
  1. RT-680
Had terrible time getting grille to connect (and reconnect) to my router. Searched for a while for the correct coaxial/thread/etc and found a set of two antennae and surface mount connectors with wires and clips to connect to board. Ended up not needing to do anything but remove old tiny antenna and screw on new antenna. Works great.
On Amazon;

DANUC 2 x 6dBi 2.4GHz 5GHz Dual Band WiFi RP-SMA Antenna + 2 x 20cm U.fl/IPEX Cable for Wireless Routers Mini PCIe Cards Network Extension Bulkhead Pigtail PCI WiFi WAN Repeater​


74873E33-99A1-48F8-8042-62CCE99C3265.jpeg
 
I went thru some of this. For a while I used a higher gain antenna. But once I switched my wifi to a better model, it worked fine with the OE antenna. So, both approaches work. More receiving capability or more signal strength.
 
I solved the same problem with the 6 db gain antenna on my (now extinct!) Memphis Beale Street before I banished it, but my new 1070 has no problems as the control is now is dual channel and receives either 2.4 or 5 Ghz. Currently it is receiving the 5Ghz. Have had zero disconnects since delivery.
 
Well, y’all, I just installed the 8dBi antenna on the grill…

Antenna-1.jpg


…and……wait for it……it connected right up.

Now, before a bunch of folks run out and buy replacement wifi antennas, let me say that I don’t know yet whether the antenna swap did the trick. It was a 30-second swap and not a scientific experiment. :rolleyes: This was just one wifi connection (albeit the first in a multitude of tries) and I’d like to test this change a bit before declaring it a success. With my luck, it could have been a one-in-a-million aberration.:ROFLMAO:

The new antenna is significantly larger than the OEM. And, in the above photo, you can see that it still fits nicely in the scheme of things. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two antennas.

Antenna-2.jpg


The replacement antenna screwed right onto the connector that the old antenna was removed from. No adapters or changing connectors required. As for size and gain, 50 years of ham radio experience tells me that bigger antennas have more gain and wifi is, after all just a UHF radio signal.
 
@Jim6820 glad you finally got your WiFi connected. My son has his 709 quite always from his house (and router) so I ordered the same antennas. I’ll probably change mine out as well to give me more flexibility as to where a I cook from.
 
Be careful @Jim6820 , you could poke an eye out with that thing!
 
Waterboy said:
@Jim6820 glad you finally got your WiFi connected. My son has his 709 quite always from his house (and router) so I ordered the same antennas. I’ll probably change mine out as well to give me more flexibility as to where a I cook from.
Click to expand...
I sure hope my initial success wasn’t a fluke; you’ll be mad at me if you don’t get the same results. ;)
 
Well, sadly, despite several attempts today, I have been unable to get the RT-340 to connect via wifi. It appears that yesterday WAS A FLUKE. So, I nee to find time to call RT and spend the time walking through their procedure. My suspicion is that the control board is the problem and needs to be replaced.

It was worth a try, but the problem persists. Darn, I never seem to get lucky with the easy fixes!
 
Tomcatbeer said:
Had terrible time getting grille to connect (and reconnect) to my router. Searched for a while for the correct coaxial/thread/etc and found a set of two antennae and surface mount connectors with wires and clips to connect to board. Ended up not needing to do anything but remove old tiny antenna and screw on new antenna. Works great.
On Amazon;

DANUC 2 x 6dBi 2.4GHz 5GHz Dual Band WiFi RP-SMA Antenna + 2 x 20cm U.fl/IPEX Cable for Wireless Routers Mini PCIe Cards Network Extension Bulkhead Pigtail PCI WiFi WAN Repeater​


View attachment 17231
Click to expand...
I also installed this antenna a few years back and knock on wood I have had zero connectivity issues since!
 
Jim6820 said:
Well, sadly, despite several attempts today, I have been unable to get the RT-340 to connect via wifi. It appears that yesterday WAS A FLUKE. So, I nee to find time to call RT and spend the time walking through their procedure. My suspicion is that the control board is the problem and needs to be replaced.

It was worth a try, but the problem persists. Darn, I never seem to get lucky with the easy fixes!
Click to expand...
Hopefully you get someone who doesn't treat you like a 2 year old. I moved and tried to connect my 790 to my new homes WiFi. I did all the steps...did all the troubleshooting including uninstalling and reinstalling the program, splitting my WiFi to be sure I was on the 2.4, blah blah blah...and finally called for "support." Let's just say I would have more support from a jock strap with the pouch removed. He was a condescending pr1ck. What a difference from a couple years ago when I purchased the grill and their customer service was FANTASTIC. Luckily the grill is great..I just really enjoyed the WiFi controller. Oh well.
 
Tomcatbeer said:
Had terrible time getting grille to connect (and reconnect) to my router. Searched for a while for the correct coaxial/thread/etc and found a set of two antennae and surface mount connectors with wires and clips to connect to board. Ended up not needing to do anything but remove old tiny antenna and screw on new antenna. Works great.
On Amazon;

DANUC 2 x 6dBi 2.4GHz 5GHz Dual Band WiFi RP-SMA Antenna + 2 x 20cm U.fl/IPEX Cable for Wireless Routers Mini PCIe Cards Network Extension Bulkhead Pigtail PCI WiFi WAN Repeater​


View attachment 17231
Click to expand...
A bit of a story here.........

700 owner since February 2020. Have never actually had problems with WiFi (until recently, will get to that in a moment).

Per another member's suggestion, I bought a very similar antenna as shown above about 2 months ago. I removed the stock antenna and installed the new one. Before putting the new one on the controller/grill, I noticed that the new antenna did not have the center pin in the connector (pic in bottom right box, above) like the old one had. I have no idea why the pin was not there, but the antenna package was a two pack and neither antenna had the pin.

So, I went ahead and screwed the new antenna onto the controller's connector, powered up and everything WiFi came right up and was working fine. OK, not how I think it should be (no center pin in the connector), but no matter, it's working. When I originally installed the new antenna, I could see that the front edge of the center female connector surface of the new antenna was protruding ever so slightly. So, I figured it was worth the chance to install it and the protrusion would make contact with the female mating surface of the controller surface, which it apparently did.

That was about two months ago. Fast Forward to last week. I "blindly" went ahead and upgraded the RecTeq App. Tried firing everything up and no WiFi, no worky. Initially, I thought it was another RecTeq App screwup. So, I pulled the old/OEM antenna out of storage, installed it on the controller and the WiFi came right up and worked fine.

Aha, the lack of the center pin had to be the problem. So, I removed the OEM antenna, grabbed my roll of handy dandy mig welding wire, cut off a very short piece, shoved it in to the female center receptacle of the new antenna, carefully installed the new antenna back on to the controller connector, being careful to make sure the mig welding wire pin also went into the female socket on the controller's connector.

Viola ! Powered the grill up, opened the app and WiFi was working fine with the new antenna. I did have to trim the length of the mig welding wire pin a couple of times to get the length right, but it appears to have solved the problem.
 
Last edited:
Threadcutter said:
A bit of a story here.........

700 owner since February 2020. Have never actually had problems with WiFi (until recently, will get to that in a moment).

Per another member's suggestion, I bought a very similar antenna as shown above about 2 months ago. I removed the stock antenna and installed the new one. Before putting the new one on the controller/grill, I noticed that the new antenna did not have the center pin in the connector (pic in bottom right box, above) like the old one had. I have no idea why the pin was not there, but the antenna package was a two pack and neither antenna had the pin.
Click to expand...
Tomcat…,

Wow, what a disaster. Interesting challenge. Glad you got it sorted. Am I the only one that decided to add a Wireless Access Point (WAP) to an existing system to cover a larger area? I use Ubiquiti Unifi equipment and I can get a dual band signal up and down my street (sorry neighbors). It is a simple fix and you’d be surprised how convenient it can be to have a strong (e.g., 350Mbps down, 100Mbps up) 95% signal all over the property. I concede I live in SoCal and our lots aren’t that large but the security and consistency rule.
 
Threadcutter said:
A bit of a story here.........

700 owner since February 2020. Have never actually had problems with WiFi (until recently, will get to that in a moment).

Per another member's suggestion, I bought a very similar antenna as shown above about 2 months ago. I removed the stock antenna and installed the new one. Before putting the new one on the controller/grill, I noticed that the new antenna did not have the center pin in the connector (pic in bottom right box, above) like the old one had. I have no idea why the pin was not there, but the antenna package was a two pack and neither antenna had the pin.

So, I went ahead and screwed the new antenna onto the controller's connector, powered up and everything WiFi came right up and was working fine. OK, not how I think it should be (no center pin in the connector), but no matter, it's working. When I originally installed the new antenna, I could see that the front edge of the center female connector surface of the new antenna was protruding ever so slightly. So, I figured it was worth the chance to install it and the protrusion would make contact with the female mating surface of the controller surface, which it apparently did.

That was about two months ago. Fast Forward to last week. I "blindly" went ahead and upgraded the RecTeq App. Tried firing everything up and no WiFi, no worky. Initially, I thought it was another RecTeq App screwup. So, I pulled the old/OEM antenna out of storage, installed it on the controller and the WiFi came right up and worked fine.

Aha, the lack of the center pin had to be the problem. So, I removed the OEM antenna, grabbed my roll of handy dandy mig welding wire, cut off a very short piece, shoved it in to the female center receptacle of the new antenna, carefully installed the new antenna back on to the controller connector, being careful to make sure the mig welding wire pin also went into the female socket on the controller's connector.

Viola ! Powered the grill up, opened the app and WiFi was working fine with the new antenna. I did have to trim the length of the mig welding wire pin a couple of times to get the length right, but it appears to have solved the problem.
Click to expand...

Update.......

Welp, WiFi is tits up. Doesn't matter which antenna I use. The pisser is that it was working fine since I first got the grill. Seems like they have come out with 3 (?) updates to the App in about the last month or so (maybe even 3 weeks......).

Have tried deleting the grill, adding the grill, deleting the app, installing the newly downloaded app. It always gets stuck at the login page (where you type in your e-mail address and WiFi password). A message pops up when I go to enter my e-mail addy that says something to the effect of "you must be connected to the same WiFi network that you want your grill to be connected to"........ Well, yes, of course. I want to connect to the same (one and only network that the grill had previously operated on. Anyway, agreeing takes me to either the Blutooth or WiFi page(s) in my settings. There doesn't appear to be anything that you can even change in settings.

I do have an Orbi Mesh system, but everything has worked fine up until about three weeks ago. I went through the first app update and everything continued to work.

Now, it is possible that I'm not doing something right. I'm not dyslexic, but every once in a while, I can read something clearly, but on the way to my brain, it translates into something else. A true "Doh" moment, if you will.

I dunno, I guess I've got to call RecTeq tech support to get this thing working again :rolleyes:. Honestly, not really how I want to be spending my time. It's kinda sad, with as many other products out there that use WiFi without any problems...............
 
Last edited:
Threadcutter said:
Update.......

Welp, WiFi is tits up. Doesn't matter which antenna I use. The pisser is that it was working fine since I first got the grill. Seems like they have come out with 3 (?) updates to the App in about the last month or so (maybe even 3 weeks......).

Have tried deleting the grill, adding the grill, deleting the app, installing the newly downloaded app. It always gets stuck at the login page (where you type in your e-mail address and WiFi password). A message pops up when I go to enter my e-mail addy that says something to the effect of "you must be connected to the same WiFi network that you want your grill to be connected to"........ Well, yes, of course. I want to connect to the same (one and only network that the grill had previously operated on. Anyway, agreeing takes me to either the Blutooth or WiFi page(s) in my settings. There doesn't appear to be anything that you can even change in settings.

I do have an Orbi Mesh system, but everything has worked fine up until about three weeks ago. I went through the first app update and everything continued to work.

I dunno, I guess I've got to call RecTeq tech support to get this thing working again :rolleyes:. Honestly, not really how I want to be spending my time. It's kinda sad, with as many other products out there that use WiFi without any problems...............
Click to expand...
Tits up doesn't sound good, sorry
 
Ironically, at Recteq Fest, they had the developers of the app, discussing the issues with, and enhancements coming. There were a few people in the area, "speaking their minds, I'm assuming"....:)
 
RipJones said:
Ironically, at Recteq Fest, they had the developers of the app, discussing the issues with, and enhancements coming. There were a few people in the area, "speaking their minds, I'm assuming"....:)
Click to expand...
I dunno, it's hard for me to conclude anything other than RecTeq have taken the cheap way out in terms of who they have had developing their software and hardware.

It isn't so much that their WiFi doesn't work, it's the fact that there are now so many products on the market where the WiFi DOES work.
 

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