| Cake Tin Based Bi-Quad Antenna |
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| This was the simples antenna I have made, and it works great.
this is a prototype, so that means imperfect materials,
lots of hot-glue gunning and measurements that are "ummm, about there.."
I started with a cake tin I bought from an op-shop for 50 cents and drilled a hole in the centre approx 12mm in diameter. I then bent a peice of copper wire 1.5mm thick into shape as detailed on Martybugs site. I pushed the coax through a peice of 12mm brass tube and soldered the outer coax braid to the brass and to the 2 ends of the folded wire. I then soldered the inner core of the coax to the inside bend of the biquad and splashed a liberal amount of hot glue around to insulate it from shorting and hold it so the coax would have some support. Then I put the other end of the coax with the SMA on it through the cake tin and slid it until the brass tube went through. I mesured it so the biquad would be the correct distance from the tin and hot glued it in place. It was surprisingly firm! with the antenna finished, I just needed to test it. I got on the roof and used some wide tape to tape it to the flue on top of the chimney. I then fired up kismet and Instantly got a very strong signal from a nearby AP. more testing will be done shortly
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| Parabolic with BiQuad feed |
| This one was fun to make. I'll write up a description of the process soon. I haven't done too much testing on this one yet, but I will soon. Initial tests show a gain of around 18 - 24dBi! The tree to the side is now gone, so there isnt too much in the way in any direction now.. woot! |
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| 16 Element Colinnear Omni Antenna |
| This one I also enjoyed making. If you are going to do one, a sharp blade is your friend. As
soon as it gets blunt and is getting harder to cut the coax, replace it! Saves you lots of time.
I plan to give this one a good test this week, so stay tuned. I don't see the sense in posting the
steps to make it as I followed the tutorial here
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| Cantenn with Sheet Metal Feed Horn |
| This is the one I use to connect to the Ottoway AP. It also sees a few other AP's as well.
It is made from 2 dog food tins and a peice of galvanised sheet metal cut to form a cone.
The angle of the cone was intended to be 30 degrees, but I didnt measure it after making
it to see whether it turned out that way. It works pretty good though. you can see the ap in a temporary, hopefully waterproof container. |
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| Cantenn with Metal Mesh Feed Horn |
| This is has picked up the most of my antennas so far. It is made with a cone of wire mesh and a cantenna out of 2 golden circle fruit juice cans. I picked up a whopping 9 networks doing a 360 degree scan, stopping at each one of 8 different direction slices. |
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| Cantenna with Metal Mesh Feed Horn |
| This one was just made for a bit of fun, and to tease the family members that think I'm scanning for aliens. I whacked it together using the cantenna for the mesh feed horn antenna and a cane table base to hold it. I put it up at my GF's mums house in Woodville for a quick scan. It really didnt pick up much, but looked hell funny! I did think it would have performed much better though, I probably didnt locate the cantenna in the right place. |
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| parabolic with Double BiQuad Feed |
| I changed the feed on the parabolic to a double biquad design. It worked ok, but not spectacularly. |
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| modified PacMon (Pacific Monolithics) Parabolic Grid |
| Now the kids are asleep I can turn off Cat in the Hat and mod my pacmon! it worked very badly, picked up virtually nothing. I will try redesigning the feed as per a design on the net. |
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