LoRa/LoRaWAN tutorial 44: Quarter Wave Ground Plane Antenna

[@ModestMaker]

I am rewatching this video after getting into LoRa last year and finding your channel. I can't thank you enough for the clear instructions and explanations you've prepared. You anticipate and answer all my questions. You are a great teacher!

[@3henry214]

Excellent video! Brilliant idea of using the terminals from a strip block.. it can be used for many other applications.

[@insidentes]

A very clear and well-structured tutorial. Thank you.

[@pacianooo3250]

very good explanation of the design, it gave me an idea on how to design a quarterwave groundplane antenna. Im gonna make my own antenna for a project that runs on 433Mhz.. THANK YOU SIR!

[@kbrawlz]

22:00 How can you say the 1/4-wave ground plane performs the same as your sleeved-dipole when the 1/4 wave transmitted twice as many messages in less time? 1/4: 30 in 17.5’ Sleeved: 15 in 18.5’

[@doejohn8674]

I also don't understand this, anyone here has an explanation?

[@Mr1Spring]

Well, the rssi measuremenst does not include the outcome of the cyclic redundency checks (could be 2 in each lora message). Decoding does use it and if the crc does indicate an error, there will be no message. So the ground plane is clearly better. Indeed twice as good as the little dipole. You better get the S/N ratio out of your device for each message.

[@lucaclary8436]

This is a very well done video! Congrats! I am planning to make a 3 bands gp antenna for 145-435-1270 Mhz! I have read that the lenght of radials must be measured for the lowest frequency. Is that right? Luca

[@tritile]

I've downloaded your deck file, but I wonder why my results are just a little different from yours. They are very close, but not equal. I mean the same file should render the same results, shouldn't it?

[@tejaslotlikar8482]

Very detailed and informative tutorial. What should be the diameter of the copper wire used in the antenna?

[@Mobilefish]

The radiator and radials wire diameter were both 1.65 mm

[@tejaslotlikar8482]

@@Mobilefish I could not find copper wire of diameter 1.65mm. Could i use any of 0.5mm, 0.8mm, 1mm, 1.2mm, 1.5mm, 1.8mm, 2mm wire? Does the diameter affect the transmission distance?

[@Mobilefish]

I recommend using 1.8 or 2mm otherwise the radiator or radials bend too easily. I started with 1.8mm and stretched the wire. 1 meter copper wire, one end attached to a vice the other on a wooden stick as a handle and then pulling it. Need some force! The stretched wire is now a little bit stiffer (does not bend easily) and ended up with a diameter of 1.65 mm. You do not need to stretch the wire, but I have done this because I often move the antenna around.

[@garrypkeogh]

Without any tuning I managed over 200km with the same antenna on Sept 22 2019. Dublin, Ireland to Isle of Mann UK

[@Mobilefish]

Garry, excellent! I was curious, so I looked it up on the TTN map. On Isle of Mann I could find 2 gateways, one of them is ttn-snaefell. Its antenna is outdoors at a whopping altitude of 630m. You mentioned Sept 22, during my experiments i noticed i got the best distances when the weather was very warm(approx 28 deg) and it was dry.

[@Mobilefish]

By the way, altitude of 630m .. I am not sure if this is correct? I live in the Netherlands everything higher than 100m looks suspicious to me because the Netherlands is flat as a pancake. 🤣

[@garrypkeogh]

@@Mobilefish ​ Mobilefish.com Correct, the Snaefell gatwawy, though this gateway has moved since my connection. I was located on Kippure mountain in Dublin Ireland, the hightest point in the local area at about 700m. I had a LoRaWAN node with me alongside some hardware used to mesh network England, Ireland and Wales using raw LoRa: twitter.com/JohnCassidyGB/status/1175342995652141057 Your channel is a fantastic asset to anybody using LoRaWAN, many thanks for your help!

[@brunobassi2440]

PMR 446 mhz Vertical monopole 16.13 cm 4 Radials. 18 cm LPD 433 mhz Vertical monopole 16.61 cm 4 Radials. 18.61 cm 144 mhz Vertical monopole 50 cm 4 Radials. 56 cm Diameter 2mm the inclination (degrees) of the 4 radials +/- SWR

[@h.sapienstechnologicus8865]

No idea how you got lower gain by increasing height

[@binoykv]

Nice