M7E Hecto antenna not working

Hi I am attempting to use an antenna with the sparkfun M7E-Hecto but am having no luck. I have followed the ThingMagic M7E-HECTO User Guide on antenna setup, even though it just says to plug it in. I am using a WRL-14131 UHF RFID antenna from sparkfun and the Universal Reader Assistant for software, and advice on configuration would be amazing.

Did you adjust the position of the SMD resistor labeled RF?

Did you reflow (move) the resistor to swap the board into external mode? https://docs.sparkfun.com/SparkFun_Simu … al-antenna

Thanks guys, I guess my solider joint just wasn’t the best, seems to be working now!

I am trying to do the same, but I messed it up and now my solder pads are gone. Is there anything I can do to salvage this?

Maybe, maybe not…share a photo of your board

You might be able to run to an electronics/phone repair shop (someone that does soldering/rework often) as an alternative to perhaps making it worse (if the traces are still in-place they can likely sand off some coating and use a good section with hookup wire to fix the issue if the pads are missing entirely)