Breaking out the antenna from a Mad Lab Junior Theremin

Hi there everyone
I have a pretty basic question about making the antenna of the Junior Theremin work at distance from the main pcb.

i should say I first tried adding some coax cable and sticking the antenna wire on the end but the whole cable became active and I just want the antenna to work away from the pcb.

I thought if I ran a ribbon cable from the 555 to a metre away along with a wire for the 1M resistor this would work but unless my soldering is too bad (which is possible!) it doesn't react (yet the board itself does if somewhat randomly not connected to any hand actions)....

Am I missing something really basic please? Theschematic for the Junior theremin is here http://www.madlab.org/schematics/JuniorTheremin.pdf and some bad images of what i did (I'm a novice at electronics)....

best wishes D

"I thought if I ran a ribbon cable from the 555 to a metre away along with a wire for the 1M resistor..."  - donald

The 1M resistor forms an RC network with the antenna capacitance, so it needs to be in circuit.  Also, the antenna wire shouldn't be part of a wire bundle, like a ribbon cable, because the electric field will interact with the other wires.  Coax might only work if you actively drive the shield with the signal you are sensing, which would require an op-amp or perhaps some transistors, and isn't a guarantee.

Locating the oscillator close to the antenna is the best, what is the reason that you can't do this?

Thanks very much for your response @dewster
I should have been a bit clearer - I meant I ran the ribbon cables off the main pcb from the 555 location (see image) onto a separate board a metre away with the 55 relocated on it. I also ran an extra one metre cable from the R1's (1M) first connection on the main pcb straight to one end of the antenna one metre away with the other end of the antenna wire attached to pin 2 of the 555 on the breakout board. So the oscillator was very close to the antenna but nothing happened so I think I need to do something else?

I have been looking at this kit too, with a view to having a really simple build for folks interested in the theremin.
With a view to those building the kit having no/very limited soldering abilities, I built the circuit on a breadboard and it did actually make a noise which 'kind of' almost resembled a theremin
I know that breadboard theremins are waaaay unpredictable and my build had more than a number of too long patch wires but I suppose my question dewster would be - how much of an improvement might I expect if I made the interconnecting breadboard wires as short as possible?

N.B.  Not expecting great things here as Madlab have marketed these kits as experimental/educational items for kids and for approx $15, I'm not expecting an E-Pro!
Also, don't want to hijack the thread but was super surprised to see the thread with the same kit as I have been playing with, just couldn't not make mention.
(Oh and by the way, as it happens, the company is based here in Edinburgh  )

"I should have been a bit clearer - I meant I ran the ribbon cables off the main pcb from the 555 location (see image) onto a separate board a metre away with the 55 relocated on it."  - donald

Oh OK, for some reason I didn't notice the extra PCB.  From your picture it seems C1 and R2 remain on the original board?  For stability they should probably be located with the 555 IC.  Then, other than power and ground, all you would have to run back to the main board would be the Pin 3 555 output.

"I also ran an extra one metre cable from the R1's (1M) first connection on the main pcb straight to one end of the antenna one metre away with the other end of the antenna wire attached to pin 2 of the 555 on the breakout board."

I'm not sure I'm following what you did you here?