Meshtastic Antenna Comparison

[@andykirby]

Brilliant video Simon! Great to show practical tests like this.👍🏻

[@fotografm]

Thanks for watching, Andy !

[@TonyLing]

He is smart isn't he?. We are glad to have him down here in Brighton.

[@richard_wenner]

Nice new practical take on RF - great to see the demonstration of interference fringes and polarization. Would have been interesting to see the effect of ground planes and where possible a reflector. Thanks.

[@fotografm]

Noted

[@TonyLing]

Both my recently installed boiler to controller, and linked smoke alarms operate within these ‘Non Specific Short Range Devices’ bands

[@fotografm]

Its a bit wide open to hackers wanting to cause havoc. But isnt everything these days...

[@Coffeenerdtools]

Great info, thanks for sharing!

[@fotografm]

Glad it was helpful!

[@markcparanormal]

Wow parada are good but i have genuine one come from paradar and it dont have name printed on they are labels

[@fotografm]

Interesting ! There are so many fake products around that it is unfortunately hard to know what is what !

[@markcparanormal]

Yes, correct. Your tests are very good thankyou. Shame we can't add photos here id show you the real one. Yours looks the same apart from the hetched branding which on mine are 2 stickers. 1 is model other is qc sticker.

[@KingMoronProductions]

They do have the name URL printed on them actually, the official Paradar antennas. You can confirm this by looking on their website at some of the photos, you'll see the stickers on one side and the printed name on the other.

[@markcparanormal]

​@KingMoronProductions then they must have changed them as mine arrived yesterday in a tube from paradar marked up with paradar but the antenna isnt. It just has 2 stickers on which have now about fallen off. Sorry for the incorrect information must be a factory change?

[@luc5543]

Good video as always! The activity you are seeing in this part of the spectrum could also be the ton of Helium miners around which also use LoRA. You could improve the Quansheng antenna by attaching a small wire as counterpoise.

[@fotografm]

I had forgotten about Helium. Is that still going ? I don't see any news of it and imagined that since they devalued the rewards a few years back it had died a death. Thanks for the antenna tip.

[@luc5543]

I think it's on its way out, slowly but surely, however still tons of miners still online, possibly as many as before, people desperate to recoup their investment. What a con that was ...

[@TonyLing]

My Ei3000MRF Smartlink Module in smoke detector is on 868.499000 MHz

[@fotografm]

That is interesting. Probably only puts out signal when it detects smoke.

[@leongiblin]

Does the length of the cable connecting to your outside antenna made much difference?

[@fotografm]

It makes a huge difference ! Some cables are very lossy indeed. I always mount the antenna direct to the node and have a long USB cable instead.

[@justinsuthers2605]

Can you share a link to the AliExpress aerial please

[@fotografm]

www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003750977051.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.35.7a9edec1npHSRk&algo_pvid=c761c89b-cdeb-4e48-8da2-b52043b65fab&algo_exp_id=c761c89b-cdeb-4e48-8da2-b52043b65fab-17&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21EUR%214.06%213.33%21%21%2130.86%2125.31%21%402103890117086114357802573e52a5%2112000028267381175%21sea%21UK%212758880207%21&curPageLogUid=0QCZgjriAQ22&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A

[@fotografm]

Today's price is 2.97GBP. Remember that they need to be opened and adjusted from 940MHz down to 868MHz and they will never achieve the advertised 12dBi gain. Max theoretical gain for a dipole like this is 2.1dBi.

[@dozer5069]

I had to send my DSP2 back.. it was terrible. Even touching the screen caused birdies all over the bands. Must of just been a bad one!

[@fotografm]

You probably had a band one as mine doesn't seem to have any birdies. If I use it on HF with a telescopic antenna on top, then touching the screen causes a rise in noise level but that is all.