Home-Brew Antennae

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Omnidirectional Antennae

It is possible to make a homebrew omnidirectional antenna, as shown in the guides listed on Links#Antennae.

Directional Antennae

Cantenna

The instructions shown the websites listed on Links#Antennae were used ti build some cantennae as shown in the pictures:

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Conical Feed element

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Cantenna with bicycle spoke element

Cantenna2.jpg


This File:Circular waveguide optimise.xls can be used to optimise the variables when building a cantenna.

Sectoral Antenna

A sectoral antenna provides the best of both worlds in terms of gain as well as beam-width and can be applied to many situations in mesh networking.

Turn an Omni into a Sector

The reflector designs shown, found at Freeantennas.com can be applied to a standard omni and will turn the omni into a sectoral antenna.

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Metal sheeting can be used for the reflector, however, the ideal would be some sort of mesh metal, with holes smaller than 1/4 wavelength (<3cm), so that the antenna is not affected by wind as much.

Simulation

NEC 2 was used to generate the simulated field pattern for a cantenna with the dimensions used in our first test cantenna.

Simulation.jpg