Upgrade X220/X230 wifi, WWAN blue/red cables usable?

If you are upgrading the wifi card on your Lenovo X220 or X230 ThinkPad, you may only have two antennas (black and white) pre-wired for wifi. If you have a wifi card with three antenna connectors, you may think you are out of luck 🙁

Actually, if your X220 or X220 has an unused red & blue antenna connector (originally for WWAN cellular card) you can use one of those for your upgraded wifi card! 🙂

Intel wifi card in Lenovo X220, before connecting blue antenna

Please note that the WWAN antenna is not perfectly sized/tuned for wifi frequencies BUT it seems to be close enough. I get significantly better signal strength with the three antennas (black, white, red) than I get with only two (black, white):

Full signal strength and 450Mbs using  Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN on upgraded Lenovo X220.

Full signal strength and 450Mbs using Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN on upgraded Lenovo X220.

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