Had a bit of fun today ...
but in my haste to solder the thing together neglected to slide the reflector I had prepared on ... I'll have to retro-fit one now - /-:
half inch copper pipe with LMR-400 down the centre, 2mm 925-silver quad element. cut solder was first placed into joints and then a micro-torch used for heating. Solder wet nicely.
Flood pinging the R100 on the roof ran fine on channels 1 then 11 ...
omni:~# ping -f -s 1400 192.168.1.7
PING 192.168.1.7 (192.168.1.7) 1400(1428) bytes of data.
.
--- 192.168.1.7 ping statistics ---
4765 packets transmitted, 4764 received, 0% packet loss, time 35992ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.571/8.230/133.919/8.560 ms, pipe 9, ipg/ewma 7.555/6.762 ms
omni:~# ping -f -s 1400 192.168.1.7
PING 192.168.1.7 (192.168.1.7) 1400(1428) bytes of data.
...
--- 192.168.1.7 ping statistics ---
8173 packets transmitted, 8170 received, 0% packet loss, time 62344ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.565/7.747/89.366/3.298 ms, pipe 7, ipg/ewma 7.629/13.275 ms
Retro-fitting the reflector of course allows for exact placement <-;
LOL
Reflected
Retro fitted a reflector today - used an old PC case and my angle-grinder.
Have yet to test properly however the unit certainly seems much more directional than before.
Full-wave loop antenna
It's always wonderful to see some home brew posts, please keep them coming.
Just a tip, although this antenna will work and have directivity, you'll find that two loops in parallel will work much better than one.
A full wave loop has a typical impedance of ~100 Ohms but most feed-lines are ~50 Ohms. To have 100% efficiently both the feed line and the antenna need to have the same impedance consequently, this antenna at best will have a 50% efficient.
Two loops in parallel will half the impedance to 50 Ohms. Further improvement can also be made by adjusting the distance between the loops and the reflector for fine tunning.
Impedance Mismatch!
Yikes - figured I should have made a bi-quad - not too hard to swap the active element.
MKII
Remade as a bi-quad with the "original" reflector for MKI
Need to attach legs to stand it off of the pig-tail ...