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by turbohedgehog 3435 days ago
FCC regulations (afaik) only apply to the power output of the device, modifying the antenna like this shouldn't change the power output.
3 comments

FCC regulates EIRP, which is output+antenna gain. For this to be strictly legal you would need to adjust the power down until the EIRP is within the legal limit. Actually to be strictly legal I think it would need to be type excepted by the FCC.

That being said if you're using this in your home/office on a legal channel it would be really difficult to even tell from outside you were using it and almost certainly not worth the FCCs time to even try to watch for it. It's not that much extra gain over the stock antenna.

To be fair, the FCC regulates both EIRP (4 W / 36 dBm) and max transmit power (1 W / 30 dBm). E.g. you can't just have a 34 dBm transmitter hooked up to a 2 dBi dipole.
If it's like here in Australia, they do consider EIRP. So a directional antenna would increase the EIRP, but with just 100mw tx at the output, I doubt EIRP would be over the limit (4W for 2.4Ghz ISM in Australia).
FCC regulations apply to the device with the supplied antenna in place.

The antenna is not supposed to be replaceable, hence the reverse SMA connector on most modems.

Modifying the antenna in any way invalidates the type approval.