Meshtastic (LORA) range test : Dipole antenna vs out-of-factory antenna

Meshtastic range test : Dipole antenna vs out-of-factory antenna
A range test comparison between the DIY dipole antenna (built in a previous video) and the default factory antenna delivered with an off-the-shelve RAk wireless LORA/Meshtastic board

[@JeffreyGroves]

Nice use of a TicTac box!

[@C--2]

Make sure all of your antennas are polarized in the same plane. Different planes don't receive well. Also, with a horizontally polarized dipole antenna needs to be way off the ground as part of the "doughnut" radiation pattern is aimed at the sky and the ground at those heights and the ends of the antenna have "cones of silence". Good for yagi's, not so good for dipoles.

[@Liberty4Ever]

On your build video for the dipole antenna, I was a bit disappointed that you didn't discuss performance or range, and here it is in this video, with a real world test. Excellent! Thanks! The results were in line with my expectations. I'm building a small local network of three Meshtastic devices, each 2.5 miles apart, in similar rolling urban/suburban terrain. I'm hoping to get enough reflections and refractions when using 8.5 dBi antennas at each location to make it work.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Nice!

[@sganzerlag]

So, how did the 3-node network work out? Best regards from Brasilia, Brazil.

[@m7trsradio]

Great testing nicely done 👍🏽

[@PeterJavea]

Very, very interesting. I'm going to see about making your dipole "The proof is in the pudding".... I live just north of Brussels and was quietly disappointed with my 2 Heltec V3s. Tiny range. This is really helpful. Thank you

[@stuartmccloud307]

Great Video. I have to build the Dipole as I can't get far enough out to my closest contact.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

sure. It is also a nice project to build its own antenna.

[@xyzheng9672]

great work！！ keeping it up

[@jameshall5314]

I bet you could get more range with long moderate. It would be interesting to see. I increased my range in my area by a few miles changing to long moderate

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Yes I thought about that too. To be tested...

[@kurtdobson]

A dipole is 2.15 dBi gain. There are much higher gain antennas available.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

A dipole is in the category of omni antennas, meaning non directional antennas. They radiate in a slightly flattened sphere , therefore the 2dB. You can of course increase the range with very directional antenna but at the cost of only working in a certain narrow direction. Which to use depends on your use case and needs.

[@chrisbardell]

Génial, merci.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

But alors you speak french ! :)

[@OH8STN]

Awesome test. Was this 433 or 868mhz?

[@bjorn2625]

The antenna was built for 868 in previous video.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

@@bjorn2625Indeed.

[@MatthewBrownUK]

Great video, how does the size of the antenna affect the range, or is that governed by the frequency?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

the size (length) of the radiating elements (in this case, the two soldered copper pieces) is indeed governed by the frequency (wavelength). The size (length) of the coaxial also has an impact. Ideally it should be the length of the wavelength.

[@gilgsn]

Good initiative to start this channel! I have a node in Antibes on 868, as of today! I will get you some subscribers...

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Merci. Quel chance d'etre au soleil a Antibes, mieux que la Belgique...

[@EdoDijkgraaf]

I wonder if (or how much) the position of the antennas influence the outcome. Will horizontal positioning vs vertical positioning matter?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Polarization matters a lot. You have to position the antennas of both emitter and receiver in the same polarization (typically vertical since the radiation pattern is a slightly flattened donut shape)

[@venopsis]

Hi, Interested into this subject. Went to a LoRaWAN conference years ago. Noticed you are in Brussels. Do you have any good place to recommend to go to meet people working with Meshtastic and/or website to discover more, any site where to buy stuff and what stuff you recommend? Thanks!

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

A central forum for this Meshtastic project is the discourse forum. (Search meshtastic discourse in google)

[@justOffgrid-ph7uo]

Can I order the antenna you built? Loving your movies

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Thanks. I do not sell antennas. It is not hard to make it yourself and it is a fun learning process.

[@jschaeke]

I see you are like me in Belgium. Last year at the Maker fair in Ghent talked with one of the amateur ham radio guys who had a booth over there, he told me you still need a radio license for Lora. I assume we're ok if we leave the default radio (strength) settings and antenna of the heltec (868), right?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

for a HAM user emitting watts of power, you most probably need a licence. For LORA/LORWan, the 868Mhz band, as far as I know, is licence free to use at up to 20dbm (100mW). This frequency and 433Mhz are licence free (under power limits) to be used for IOT and drone use for example.

[@jschaeke]

Thanks will pay extra attention to radio strengths and not boost over these numbers you stated. 2 heltec units are ordered last week, so hope soon to play with it.

[@ef91valve]

Confused, how do you know you are getting back to your own base station and not being accepted by another Meshtastic device. I was under the impression that any device rebroadcasting your message and picked back up by your own device would give you a tick in the cloud when using Longfast which is the common channel?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Because I'm the only one in Brussels right now...And I checked the received messages by the base station

[@jxpat]

What frequency were you testing?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

LORA frequency (868Mhz band)

[@bellimmo]

Bonjour, Ce serait super que vous vous fassiez des vidéos en français aussi 😊 je suppose que par votre accent vous êtes français

[@samik83]

Was this on long-fast?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

Yes. I forgot to mention it indeed. So actually we could expect better range with slower-longer range settings

[@UnknownUser-pf9rk]

HOW does everybody get results like this? In an Urban area? I can't even get messages through over 1km, line of sight, from one hill slope to another with just a hand full of trees in the way 🤷‍♂ And yes, I tried all sorts of antennas.

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

That could be caused by many different factors : your environment, interferences, what frequency you use (is this frequency "polluted" by other uses around), etc What frequency do you use (433, 968, other ?). What antenna did you try and what meshtastic board ? Maybe you radio module is faulty ? (could have happened if you powered your device once without an antenna connected on it)

[@UnknownUser-pf9rk]

@@PoweredMeshtasticEurope I really have no clue and will surely repeat my tests soon. I am using EU868 on two T-Beams and as far as I remember I tried the tiny stock antenna, two bigger ones from Amazon that seemed to perform well earlier (good SWR too) and a DIY moxon antenna. I actually had good reception amongst houses up to 800-900 meters away but then in the forest with a better line of sight I ran out of luck. I actually did turn on the devices without an antenna by accident a couple of times but so far they seem fine. Or is it a GIVEN that turning them on without an antenna will instantly fry them? Will they still send, just badly (which might be an explanation) or will they stop working entirely if that happens (then they are still fine)?

[@Liberty4Ever]

@@UnknownUser-pf9rk - Powering the Meshtastic device without a proper antenna load could damage the transmitter. The device will appear to function but there will be little or no transmitted signal. I"d try a new LoRa device.

[@UnknownUser-pf9rk]

@@Liberty4Ever Like I mentioned it has worked up to at least 900m. Would a damaged board still do that? What about those horrible tiny stock antennas with horrible SWRs? Wouldn't they also damage the board?

[@Liberty4Ever]

@@UnknownUser-pf9rk - Certainly, the cheap antennas that have a dead short could damage the transmitter, and probably the antennas that are an open circuit as well. Transmitter damage can vary. Sometimes the final drive transistor is completely destroyed and there is no signal transmitted. Other times an area of the semiconductor is damaged and the transmit power is degraded. Slightly Different Topic: Ironically, power FETs are usually more sensitive to electrostatic discharge damage than analog ICs or digital logic ICs. Most semiconductors won't be damaged by handling in most cases once mounted to a printed circuit board, but that's probably not true of power FETs as may be found in the transmitter on a LoRa board, yet I see a lot of videos of people handling these little boards with little care and no ESD safe handling procedures. It probably isn't an issue with these little boards that only output around 100 mW, but it might be.

[@williamna5800]

Cant you set both units to "range test" in settings and just keep riding until the unit on the bike quits popping message? Seems like that would be easier, not to mention it can log straight to SD card with location?

[@PoweredMeshtasticEurope]

I tried the range test functionality with mixed results. It does not work fully as far as my experience goes. I might do a video about this "weakness" in the meshtastic app.

[@williamna5800]

@@PoweredMeshtasticEurope I tried with the latest firmware, seemed to be ok thou tbh I didn't fully analyze the logs, but it did send/rec until I moved about 1.3 miles apart then it started missing a few. (heavy pines nearly the entire way between nodes)