Meshtastic @mander.xyz beastlykings @sh.itjust.works 4w ago

DIY 1/4 wave ground plane antenna, tuned to 907mhz, the default for longfast modems.

I'm going to do some a/b testing to compare to the rubber duck antennas I've been using. I don't expect much more, but perhaps a little bit more range?

Going from the little stubby coil of wire included with the heltec v3s, this should be amazing.

Smith chart showing resonance at 907mhz

Edit: I tested it and it works just fine, or at least within the margin of error of my test. It wasn't significantly better or worse than the Amazon bought high gain rubber duck antennas, a little disappointing but 🤷‍♂️

As has been said before, height is might. Line of sight counts for more than increased power.

I'll still probably use them on some permanent nodes 🤷‍♂️

2 comments

I love Lemmy because I genuinely have no idea what this item is. Something for WiFi or a radio is my guess? I can’t imagine what it does or what you need it for or how you went about doing any of it, but it’s so fucking cool to me that you guys get it and are doing it and are sharing it together. And Lemmy being smaller means I get to see this sort of thing more often. Go outside of my bubble.

When we’re not being the fucking worst, human beings are the best.
- Hi there! Thanks!
  
  You're right it's a radio thing. There are many types of radio things, this is just one piece of one of them.
  
  This community focuses on meshtastic, which is a communication protocol that rides on top of LoRa. LoRa is a type of radio signal, kind of like how AM and FM radios are different, this is a little different too. It's designed for low power, free and legal to use, long range communication.
  
  The beauty of meshtastic is in the name, it's a mesh. So all the radios talk to each other and relay messages to increase the distance you can send messages.
  
  This picture is a simple example of that:
  
  Use cases include everything from long distance emergency communication to friends keeping in touch while camping or hiking with no cell service. There's way more, but that's the idea.
  
  Companies have made similar products before, but they've always been fairly expensive. But these LoRa meshtastic radios are only like $20-30, so it's really easy to get started. And they are more flexible.
  
  There's more to it, but that's the main idea. The thing I made in the original post was an antenna, trying to improve the range of my radio. It worked about as well as a store bought one, which I guess is better than it doing worse 🤷‍♂️