Today my team and I successfully conducted a radio range test for two different receiver antennas.
We tested on Purdue's campus, with one team member on the 7th floor of Beering Hall (BRNG) right next to the "Vision" conference room, and me, the other team member at 11th and Tippencanoe streets in Lafayette (across the river). As you can see in the graphic, the distance is about 1.6 miles. Not quite as far as the test Eric and I conducted a couple months ago, but far enough to get some good testing done. For reference, the rated range of the NTX2 transmitter is 500m - 1.6 miles is > 2500m.
We tested a couple different antenna and found some interesting results...
We tested on Purdue's campus, with one team member on the 7th floor of Beering Hall (BRNG) right next to the "Vision" conference room, and me, the other team member at 11th and Tippencanoe streets in Lafayette (across the river). As you can see in the graphic, the distance is about 1.6 miles. Not quite as far as the test Eric and I conducted a couple months ago, but far enough to get some good testing done. For reference, the rated range of the NTX2 transmitter is 500m - 1.6 miles is > 2500m.
We tested a couple different antenna and found some interesting results...
On the transmitter side we had a 1/4 wave ground plane antenna constructed for 434.65 MHz, the transmitter frequency. On the receiver side we had an identical 1/4 wave ground plane antenna, and also a MOXON antenna. The moxon is an interesting antenna, in that's it's very simple yet very effective.
We tested under several different conditions (meaning antenna orientations), and to my surprise we received data successfully in all cases. I guess the antennas aren't quite as directional as I had thought.
In the basic case, we had both receiver and transmitter antennas pointed towards each other. In this case, I would say the moxon outperformed the 1/4 wave - they both received data successfully, but the moxon displayed surprisingly less noise.
Other cases included turning one antenna 90 degrees, then the other, then both, and finally point them away from each other. In all cases data was successfully received, although I didn't expect to get such good data when one antenna was pointing South and the other one North. At this point I'm not too sure which antenna to use for the launch, although I'm leaning towards the 1/4 wave since it tended to display less noise. However, I'm not happy with the construction of the moxon, so I'm going to use the equipment at my disposal in my newfound job at a machine shop and see if I can build a much more precise antenna.
We tested under several different conditions (meaning antenna orientations), and to my surprise we received data successfully in all cases. I guess the antennas aren't quite as directional as I had thought.
In the basic case, we had both receiver and transmitter antennas pointed towards each other. In this case, I would say the moxon outperformed the 1/4 wave - they both received data successfully, but the moxon displayed surprisingly less noise.
Other cases included turning one antenna 90 degrees, then the other, then both, and finally point them away from each other. In all cases data was successfully received, although I didn't expect to get such good data when one antenna was pointing South and the other one North. At this point I'm not too sure which antenna to use for the launch, although I'm leaning towards the 1/4 wave since it tended to display less noise. However, I'm not happy with the construction of the moxon, so I'm going to use the equipment at my disposal in my newfound job at a machine shop and see if I can build a much more precise antenna.
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