Hope this isn’t a silly question but…. I see lots of cheap PCB style 1090Mhz antennae and am wondering if that is what is inside the 60cm FR or RadarBox antenna. Would such a flat pcb style antenna be directional at all? Would it apply to the 60cm sticks? Could rotating my stick potentially improve reception in certain directions?
Edit: a suggested post had lots of info but I couldn’t see any reference to directional properties so will leave this post here for comment. Thanks in advance to all.
OK, so that allays my fears about my existing antenna, thanks.
How about the obviously flat pcb ones though?
No perceptable directional properties of either the PCB dipole or multi-element PCB antennas.
Thanks @geckoVN - it was the narrow edges that I imagined might cause issues, particularly when ‘pointing at’ my most active direction.
Bit of an update on this. Decided to buy a cheapo flat pcb ‘antenna’ from Amazon, along with a short (3m) length of thin coax. Swapped out the 60cm stick (no-name from Pi Shop) which used a 2m length of fatter cable, N-type to SMA and was hung from a roof truss in the loft space. I was expecting to get worse performance but really just wanted to compare. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it now performs almost as well as my RadarBox branded 60cm pole mounted external twig. Looks to be around 6% down on the external, compared with around 17% prior to change. Only change is the twig and cable, nothing else touched.
I might look into ways of waterproofing it and putting it up the pole to see what happens. Might also get some decent cable to connect it as well before moving to the roof. Roof will require nearly 15m of coax as opposed to 3m max internally.
TLDR: surprised at how well a cheap pcb antenna works in direct comparison with a much more expensive externally and higher mounted 60cm one.
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El Cheapo
Price US $1.77 + Shipping US $1.45 = Total US $3.22 
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004204793192.html
Not exactly that one, well not the same name! But looks identical.
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