What external antennas have you all used?
Has anyone found any interesting or cost effective 900mhz antennas for sale online? If so, share your links.
Here are a few I have found on eBay that look neat. Any thoughts?
3 Likes
I bought a 900 MHz omni-directional antenna from The Antenna Farm. It is a Comet KP-20, very good quality fiberglass about 8 feet long. Gain is 9.2 dBi. Has a Female N-Connector and mounting hardware. Price is around $120 so I consider that a good deal.
Ken - W4KLP
2 Likes
3 Likes
Those look interesting. Any satisfying results?
I haven’t got this far yet, in part because I am still kinda stuck on how to do the hack internally to fit, all while minimally interrupting the rest of the functions packed into that tiny case.
Do you have pics of how you tapped the feedline? Is that a SMA connector (and what type) or something else on the case now?
Something convenient to do when considering antennas mounted as you’re doing would be to utilize a ring or loop on top. This way handling them is made easy, as well as getting them located for best “view” of the surroundings.
1 Like
I will hopefully have some good results over the next few weeks of testing.
Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of my modification process but I will be modding a couple more in a week or so. I will be sure to take some photos then.
Yes it’s a SMA connector.
2 Likes
Looks nice, has anyone used like a 50 antenna cable to have the antenna on the roof on their house and gotenna inside?
You will have waaay too much RF loss running 50 feet of cable on 900mhz. Not advisable considering goTenna mesh only put out 1 watt to begin with. Best to put the goTenna on the roof.
2 Likes
ShootAnyAngle is generally right. You can do that if you have the right coax, but you’d spend multiple times what the goTenna cost to do it, because it would require high end components to do it. Definitely not the stuff you’d find at Radio Shack, even if you’re lucky enough to still have one around.
What works great is to put that little ol’ GTM in a waterproof box (plastic, not metal) and attach it to a mast. The cord going up to it in this pic is the power supply from the solar charger at the base. It’s not coax, although there is coax going farther up to the CB base station antenna mounted at the top of the mast above the red box that holds the goTenna.
2 Likes
How did these work out? Any recommendations?
Mike…thank you for the common sense response. With such low power, using the OEM antenna is the best/feasible approach.
1 Like
I gave up on external antenna mods a long time ago when I came to that conclusion. Instead I’ve been looking for a good way to manage a Gotenna that’s place very high for good line of site. I’m convinced some type of microcontroller mod to control the power state and monitor the Gotenna battery health / power state.
Another solution I like is people using corner reflectors. It gives you a way to direct the energy in the direction you want. Great for a point to point connection.