The antenna wire came off the solder a couple days ago after the adapter fell 5 feet too many times, and now for some reason it's still receiving packets. Is it some technological miracle? Only thing is that the signal is still low. Odd
Na, quite normal. An antenna is pretty much a stick of metal, nothing else. If you remove it, the transmission quality and power will go down, but it usually can be replaced by any wire, as long as it's a good conductor.
There's a reason why you see antennas "fixed" with coat hooks so often in TV: it actually works.
Do like my brother did when the TV anetnna of his telly broke, he put down a fork into the hole and glued it there. I'd swear I would never belive it, before I actually saw it, the signal was great lol!