ENG-CANSAT-ANTENNA

Introduction

What ever you do, the antenna is always one of the most sensitive component when working in the radio area.

The following schema shows how to wire the RFM69HCW to transmit data.

As you can see, the antenna is made of a simple wire.

Remove the wire and the data would not transmit at 1 meter of distance, even on the same desk!

Remember, the antenna is the key to transmit data over a long distance!

Antenna connector

The radio modules usually offer a spot to solder antenna.

With the RFM69HCW the antenna spot allow you to connect an antenna in 3 different ways.

Later on, you would focus on antenna choice:

• A wire inside the antenna hole (also said a wire dipole or simple dipole).
• A µFl connector to plug antenna.
• A PCB SMA connector also to plug other kind of antenna.

The cheapest antenna is the wire antenna (simple dipole) and the best option is the SMA connector (also mode heavy).

The µFl connector (also named uFl) is looking to this:

A PCB SMA connector is looking to this:

Yagi Antenna

While reading some resources on the QSO magazine (Belgian Radio Amateur Association magazine written in french and dutch), we did discover a Yagi Antenna tuned for 433Mhz.

Source: QSO Magazine via this publication - click to enlarge

This antenna was engineered from the "Cheap Yagy" (pdf), issue from the "[ Controlled Impedance 'Cheap' Antennas]" article written by Kent Britain WASVJB.

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Written by Meurisse D. from MC Hobby - License: CC-SA-BY.