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Antenna Construction
Constructing and testing an antenna made out of an Oil can is been fun. Furthermore if one consider that an equivalente performance for an antenna in the market might be somewhere between $40-80 USD, one might encounter extra motivation.
Conditions were created in the lab so that each participant could build their own antenna.
Bill of Materials
One N-male Connector
Piece of copper wire
One Oil Can
Cutting the active element (the wire in the connector) is a bit tricky, to get it at the right lenght that is. Basically it should be around 1/4 wave length, which at 2.44 ghz is around 3 cm. In this case is better to leave it a bit longer and later tune the antenna on the Spectrum Analizer (SA) by cutting it little by little between measurements as needed.
The distant from the bottom of the can at which the connector should be installed is calculated in the book. For these cans it should be 6.2 cm.
Once the antennas are built they can be tested on the SA to measure return power.
And antennas are ready to be used on a link. Expected gain is 10 dBi and the beam should be around 60 degres wide. Care should be taken about polarization during instalation, making sure the orientation of the active element is the same on both sides of the link.
Simply enjoy!