+OldGeezer Posted June 25, 2003 Share Posted June 25, 2003 I am anxious to experiment with home made antennas for my GPS II+. I suspect I'll start with the turnstile design in October, 2002 QST or perhaps one of the many patch antennas described on the Internet. Any reports of hands-on experience with various designs would be sincerely appreciated. Quote Link to comment
Mapmaster Posted June 25, 2003 Share Posted June 25, 2003 I would recommend to start with a patch antennea. But it's also very hard to build a working one without the possibility to use a network-analyzer. If you use copper-boards with air as the dielectricum, the epsilon is hard to define and you can not give a simple recipe. But it's definitly worth to try. For the LNA, I would recommend the MACOM AM50-0002. Great little chip! 27db gain and only two additional resistors needed for matching. I'm also interested in building a helix-antenna, but I haven't had the time yet to do it. Quote Link to comment
+GeneralBracket Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 quote:I would recommend to start with a patch antennea. But it's also very hard to build a working one without the possibility to use a network-analyzer. If you use copper-boards with air as the dielectricum, the epsilon is hard to define and you can not give a simple recipe. But it's definitly worth to try. Don't forget to tune the flux capacitor prior to charging the dilithium crystal matrix. Quote Link to comment
Mapmaster Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 quote:Originally posted by General Bracket:Don't forget to tune the flux capacitor prior to charging the dilithium crystal matrix. You won't believe, but GPS is more complicated than searching for ammo-boxes. Quote Link to comment
+OldGeezer Posted June 26, 2003 Author Share Posted June 26, 2003 I have been led to believe that patch antennas sometimes have difficulty "seeing" some of the lower-to-the-horizon sats. I'm not sure that is a problem, however. As for test equipment, everything I have is designed for h.f. (3-30 MHz). That doesn't work very well at 1.575 GHz. Anyhow, I'll try a couple *cookbook* designs and report my findings here. Quote Link to comment
+GeneralBracket Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 quote:You won't believe, but GPS is more complicated than searching for ammo-boxes. <heh heh> Yeah, I know. Just seemed like the right thing to say after all the words I couldn't even pronounce. Quote Link to comment
dreamgear Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 Any on-line references for building these home-brew antennas ? I have no RF/EE background but I've been known to be handy with a soldering iron. I also have some thinwire ethernet cables lying around with BNCs on them. Quote Link to comment
+PDOP's Posted June 26, 2003 Share Posted June 26, 2003 Here's a link to a PDF file with instructions for building an external antenna. The link is from the gpsinformation.net web site. PDOP's GPS Pages Quote Link to comment
+OldGeezer Posted June 29, 2003 Author Share Posted June 29, 2003 quote:Originally posted by dreamgear:Any on-line references for building these home-brew antennas ? I have found several examples here: http://www.helenav.nl/antlinks.htm Quote Link to comment
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