Hi - can anybody give me any advice on how to make a very simple 433 Mhz antenna? Could a specific length of wire work? Or what about an antenna that's actually a trace on a pcb? Sorry I'm horrible when it comes to RF
I'm making a remote control for my outside lights. The only thing not designed is the antennas - everything else has been designed and tested. I've just been using short pieces of wires for antennas and the range seems to be pretty good, amazingly.
Any antenna should work fine but I would recommend a antenna off of a cordless phone like a 900mhz
depending were you bought your tx/rx
it could go as far as 500 feet.
Do a search on Digikey for '433mhz antenna'. I tried making my own for a while and dealt with tuning problems. I use the linx 1/4 wave whips, now. For $2.00, it's hard to justify making your own, and they look pretty professional, too.
You can see what it looks like, here:
**broken link removed**
If you want to go cheaper, they even have some cheezy helical coils for under $1.00.
Any antenna should work fine but I would recommend a antenna off of a cordless phone like a 900mhz
depending were you bought your tx/rx
it could go as far as 500 feet.
You need an aerial that is at least close to the right size, impedance and design for your chosen frequency and task (directional/omni/...)
Start by looking at **broken link removed** for a directional
Or **broken link removed** page 16 of the datasheet gives a bit of info on wire and pcb track aerials --- I'm using these little transcievers at the minute, playing with a 16.4cm monopole on a portable keyboard and a centre-fed dipole (about 4 times the above) for a remote control system - it works for me !
As already suggested, a 1/4 wave whip is only short, and VERY easy to calculate - but even easier, read the datasheet for the RF modules you use, they generally give one or two exact aerial dimensions - particularly as the aerial is an important part of the licence free conditions!.
As already suggested, a 1/4 wave whip is only short, and VERY easy to calculate - but even easier, read the datasheet for the RF modules you use, they generally give one or two exact aerial dimensions - particularly as the aerial is an important part of the licence free conditions!.
The datasheet gave no information on this whatsoever. I think they said that a quarter wave antenna would be a good idea - but they gave no dimensions or anything like that.
I specificly said in the post that they were $2.00.
If you went to digikey and did the search I suggested, you would have seen that the antennas that came up are actually the Linx line and to be exact, the Linx 1/4 wave whip that I show in the picture is $2.03, USD.