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antennas

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Antennas

The board has a PCB antenna for the 2.5 GHz ISM Band, for stand alone operation on the Camp Area. For other frequencies the use of an external antenna is highly recommended.

How to attach an external antenna

Temporary

To improve radio reception a little bit you can just press a thumb against the upper right corner and be a human antenna. The most simple real external antenna is a single-wire copper cable (others may also work). This can be pressed against an edge of the little black resistor on the top right corner.

Soldering

When soldering an antenna or SMA connector, a resistor (R315, 0 Ohm) must be turned 90 degrees or replaced with a bridge, connecting the RF line on the left to the SMA connector pads on the right

(then the 0 Ohm resistor will be sitting on the R314 pads; R314 and R315 share the upper left pad).

The SMA connector should be an edge-launch SMA connector for a PCB thickness of 1.6mm

Resistor turned 90 degrees

Alternative: Add bridge, remove resistor

Using a soldered copper cable as antenna:

Adding an SMA connector so that you can connect an external antenna for your specific needs.

WARNING: When soldering, don't connect the unpopulated large pads right below the antenna pads to the pads, this may result in blue smoke! Best to check right after soldering, we did find a few cases of barely visible connection.

Building an external antenna

There will be an antenna building workshop at the camp: https://events.ccc.de/camp/2015/wiki/Session:Build_your_own_Antenna_Workshop

Build your own dipol antenna: https://events.ccc.de/camp/2015/wiki/Projects:D1pole

antennas.1439731394.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/08/16 15:23 by mkie