Specializing in
Long Distance
Wireless Networking.

The Brick Antenna (6dBi)

			Design
			Link Tests
			Prices

5-8 dBi Brick Antenna Design

Here is a design for a simple antenna. While relatively low gain, the big advantages of this antenna are:

	Will not Rust. While the Coffee Can antenna is also simple, it is difficult to rust-proof.
	Small.
	Light. 650 grams including U-bolt.
	Rugged. Very strong, and easy to mount solidly.
	Easy construction. No curves!
	Cheap.. if you have off-cuts left over from building a Waveguide antenna.

Many will recognize that this design is really just a variation on the popular 'Coffee Can' or 'Pringles Can' design. The only advantage of this over those antennas is that you could drive a car over this antenna, and it will not rust. In short - it is ready for permanent mounting.

While the full instructions for building your own Brick Antenna are given below. As I recently ran out of the Aluminium tubing, I have started making Brick Antennas from the same material as the Downpipe antennas - i.e 95 x 45 x 0.4 mm ZincAlum. The performance is identical.

You can buy some of the harder to get parts, or completely assembled ZincAlum Brick Antennas here .

The 'standard' brick comes with a V-clamp, ready to mount on a pole

Optionally, it can come with no mounting section, making a great signal booster for use within a house, or 'through-the-window' and 'across-the-reod' applications.

Performance

In the plot at the left, you can see three zones:
Left: PCMCIA card by itself
Middle: Brick antenna (wrong polarization)
Right: Brick Antenna (correct Polarization)

Compared to the PCMCIA card alone:
Noise: reduced by approx 8dB
Signal: Increased by approx: 13 dB
SNR: Improved by approx 21 dB

(Click on picture to see full scale)

Download the design.

Price

See Prices

Copyleft: Rob Clark 2003 Comments?: Webmaster

FWD Number:
71950

Recommended Site: