Hi guys, are there anyone used a standard copper wire as an antenna on RFM95W+Arduino end-node? If anyone used, what was the longest distance you get?
The largest factor affecting range is the loaction and environement and height of the antenna.
In line of sight conditions, simple wire antennas, 1/4wave vertical with radials or a dipole, are often used in high altitude balloon trackers, current record there is 766km.
Appreciate that for a node a simple wire antenna of 2dBi is very often the legal maximum allowed.
1 Like
Hi,
if it can be useful to someone I attach the SCO-868-4 and SCO-868-6 antenna radiation patterns in msi and ant v3 format.
SCO-868-4.msi.txt (8.0 KB)
SCO-868-4.ant.txt (4.8 KB)
SCO-868-6.msi.txt (8.0 KB)
SCO-868-6.ant.txt (4.8 KB)
bye
1 Like
Hi there,
first of all there ar many things that effect distance. LoRa Tracker mentioned them above.
talking about simple ir antennas - I started with those, they can be good for testing and I even managed to get 1.7km in urban environment - gateway had colinear antenna.
Also you can take a look into making you own colinear and ground plane antennas. It isn’t as complicated as it seems and if you stick to dimentions they come out really well even without special device to tune them.
I am considering and asking these cases for minimal end-nodes, so the ground plane and colinear antennas are huge and bulky for these kind of nodes. What was your antenna’s gain when you got 1.7 km in urban environment? And what was your duty cycle? I mean, while you were getting data from 1.7 km what was the period of the incoming data? I tried with simple ir antenna which has a 2.14 dBi gain but did not got up to even 1 km in urban environment. Longest distance that i get with this antenna was approx. 800-900 meters. With standard copper wire -1/4 wavelength- antenna i got more efficiency which up to 1.1 km but it was not normal for Lora technology either i guess. Additional to this, my 5 seconds period was increased after i passed 800 meters and was not stable, i mean it increased to 25-30 seconds. What was your observations? Could you enlighten me?
what type of nodes you’re talking ? factory / DIY ? and what type of gateway
Its almost impossible to say whether you getting a range that is better or worse than expected.
‘Urban environents’ vary a great deal, in one 500m might be par, in another you might get 5km, all with the same basic setup.
The location, the height of the gateway antenna and the nodes, the proximetry of nearby objects will all affect the range, sometimes very significantly.
I would accuse the gateway more than the node. I do not know what do you mean for ir antenna, but normally the gateway location is the first determinant of coverage. A tracker I have with an antenna that could be 1/8 wavelength has been received up to 40km by a well placed gateway.
1 Like
110km with a Zane Ztube here in Wales UK… SF7
1 Like
Where can I find mounting brackets for my RAK antenna ? This is my antenna:
I found these brackets: https://www.123satelliet.nl/blueqon-WMM10-Muurbeugel-Zware-Uitvoering but these are oversized.
I look in auto accessory shops for exhaust pipe clamps. They have a range of clamp sizes to suit the wide range of pipes found on different make/model cars.
2 Likes
I have 2 of these absolute junk super cheap fake nagoya 771 antennas in my junk box 
you think they can be ‘tuned’ … cut , to 868 ?
-
update - experiment failed
I could have told you that before you cut it. These antennas are designed to be tuned to 2 frequencies and both sections are dependant on each other.
For example: one antenna is tuned for 144 MHz and then electically sized as a 1/4 lambda antenna. at the same time it is tuned for 430 MHz and electically sized as 5/8 lambda antenna.
What happens is you cut it somewhere to change resonance? you will have to cut is twice to stay resonent in the way you want. It will not respnd as you hope. You know now 
yes I did … the fr center indeed changed, but just a bit to 220 Mhz … lesson learned , 1.80 wasted 
1 Like
I found this one:
€ 6,99 | OSHINVOY Outdoor patch antena installatie L beugels Antenne fixatie holding pole U bouten beugel
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/s5YXAxlQ
May is this some thing for you, only use the brackets.
Hello @gaguilar,
i really appreciated your question concerning the size of the wires and copper part in the antenna. Did you manage to understand why they call this 868Mhz tuned while it seems to be a wrong size ?
thanks for your insights
I stumbled over this simple mount for RAK antennas. Not for outdoor! Would be great if this should be available in a material that is resistant for outdoor use.
1 Like