Just got a 5bi antenna

[ben170292]

Hi,

I just got one of these and switched it with the antenna I got with my RTL-SDR and the range has gone right down.
Is there anything I can do/modify to get a better range?

Thanks for any advice.

[rugomol]

colinear coaxial (coco) antenna

Built my first antenna and doubled my coverage

I have been anxiously looking forward to building a antenna and finally got around to it this morning. It’s really a simple 4-element colinear coaxial (coco) antenna that’s outside my window attached to a bamboo pole. I made the antenna out of RG59, because I have a bunch of it and it’s the first thing I grabbed. I’ll make my next one out of RG6. I used the design I found in the Plane Finder forum here: http://forum.planefinder.net/threads/ads-b-diy-antenna.23/page-18. Go down to…

use more short cable or LNA

[Album] ADS-B FlightAware Enclosure Build

How to reduce the signal attenuation caused by long cable?

Wilson Electronics adapter 971128 . For tranmitting, impedance matching is very desireable. An impedance missmatch means that a 100W transmitter may be able to transmitt say only 70W. To transmit 100W with impedance mismatch, one may have to use a 150W transmitter at substantial higher cost. In case of receiving, since the power involved is in micro Watts or milli Watts, adding a low cost rf amplifier such as satellite in line amplifier, or Pro Stick’s built-in rf amplifier, can cover for m…

Antenna height increased but range doesn't

Raising antenna definitely improves range IF tall objects (buildings, trees etc) are around. Each foot of antenna height increase matters. Once the antenna is above height of surrounding obstructions, any further increase in its height gives very little improvement in range, unless the increase in antenna height is in hundreds of feet. SKETCH 1 of 2 [antenna-obstruction-and-range-3] . SKETCH 2 of 2 [antenna-obstruction-and-range-2A]

[Obadiah3244]

I bought a couple of those on Amazon and sent them right back for refund.

JUNK!!

[Nickajeglin]

I also bought those, and found that they had far worse reception than my home built antennas. I have made and tested quite a few, but two designs have stood out far above the rest.

1. cantenna: Advice for my Cantenna setup w/ outdoor enclosure

• easy to build
• good range (I get over 150nm consistently, and 200+ occasionally with it in a second story window, and many obstructions around. )
• kind of fragile/hard to mount
• ugly

2. J-pole: ADSB J-pole Antenna and the calculator here: Slim Jim / J Pole Antenna Calculator

• not quite as easy to build (I ordered some semirigid coax off amazon)
• spectacular range (I now consistently get 200nm+, and my messages per second were double what I got from the cantenna
• super durable
• inconspicuous

The cantenna is dead easy to build, and gets about 4x the messages per second that those junk rubber duck ones do. I can’t recommend the J-pole enough though. I was shocked at how well it performed. It gets another 2x messages per second than even the cantenna at my location.

[Obadiah3244]

@ben170292

Hi,

I just got one of these and switched it with the antenna I got with my RTL-SDR and the range has gone right down.

Is there anything I can do/modify to get a better range?

Thanks for any advice.

I get great results from the telescopic antenna included in this bundle. I keep it fully retracted so that it is set at about 5.5" which is 1/2 wavelength for 1090 Mhz.

Nooelec - Nooelec NESDR SMArt v5 Bundle - HF/VHF/UHF (100kHz-1.75GHz) RTL-SDR...

[Nickajeglin]

One other consideration: I believe that the stratux people claim you need a pretty good ground plane to get the rubber ducky antenna working well. My package included a big strip of copper tape to make the ground plane. you might try using it with yours to see if it improves the situation. I tried the copper tape, and then a 4x4 inch square of copper, and neither seemed to have any effect, but YMMV.

[mwshell]

Just fell for the same trap, ordering directly from Nooelec’s website $6, +$4 for shipping. Reading this lets me know I wasted my money. Disappointing.