My external-antenna experiment on a Linksys wap/router failed!

(Also posted to 'alt.internet.wireless' newsgroup)

Over the last several weeks, I acquired some newer wireless
equipment, so that I could conduct an experiment using an
EXTERNAL antenna.  The results were NOT what I
expected.  Here's the gory details:

I acquired a new Linksys BEFW11S4-V4, and loaded the
latest firmware into it (firmware v 1.45.7 ).  I also acquired
a 10-foot LMR-195 connecting cable and a HyperGain 10-dBi
Omni Antenna.

For a client PC, I used a Win-XP-based laptop, with an
Orinoco Gold PCMCIA adaptor.  For testing signal strength,
I ran a copy of v 0.30 of Netstumbler on this laptop.

I carried the laptop a few rooms away from the room with
the Linksys router and cable-modem in it.  I first left the
Linksys with its 2 little builtin antennas on it, and using
Netstumbler, I measured the signal strength so I would
have a baseline value before I connected the EXTERNAL
antenna.

I then unscrewed one of the builtin antennas and attached the
external antenna onto that port.  Using the management HTML-UI
for the Linksys router, I went into the 'wireless' subsection of
the setup parameters.  There are FOUR different 'antenna diversity'
settings:  (1) default (2) right-spread-on (3) left-spread-on (4)
diversity-spread-on

Not knowing whether 'right' and 'left' meant as viewed from the FRONT
or REAR of the Linksys-box, I simply set and applied each of the 4
different diversity settings one-at-a-time, and then took a new
signal strength measurement for each one.  (I figured that I could
easily conclude what the correct diversity setting would be
by simple trial-and-error.)

The results:  I got NO SIGNIFICANT difference in signal strength
readings among each of the different settings.  And, also NO DIFFERENCE
between any of those four and the baseline test using just the two
little builtin antennas.

Well, needless to say, those results are shocking and NOT what I expected!

(I hate to conclude that using an EXTERNAL 10-dBi omni-antenna buys you
nothing...but that's what my experimental data is saying.)  Somewhere,
either
my understanding of the theory or my implementation of the experiment,
something does not compute!

So, the obvious questions:  Has anyone else ever tried this?
What might have gone wrong?  Are my expectations that such
an external antenna OUGHT to make a difference correct?

TIA...

            Dave







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