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Tiny antenna for Nomad?


bendybones

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Wow. That's pretty drastic IMO. At what point do we start admitting that there may be a design flaw with the current location of the Zaxnet antenna on the Nomad? (Edit: I'll probably get a lot of heat for that comment)

 

Didn't seem that drastic to me.  Took me about 5 minutes with stuff I had around the house.  A lot easier than dealing with the bag pushing on an antenna, connectors coming loose, etc..

I do agree the placement is not ideal for a recorder designed to go in a bag, but it's not going to move now.  Too late for that.

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Didn't seem that drastic to me.  Took me about 5 minutes with stuff I had around the house.  A lot easier than dealing with the bag pushing on an antenna, connectors coming loose, etc..

I do agree the placement is not ideal for a recorder designed to go in a bag, but it's not going to move now.  Too late for that.

 

I get that. And I think your approach seems bullet proof (literally!). Just sort of maddening that we have to come up with solutions like this to deal with it. Oh well. Moving on I guess..

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I get that. And I think your approach seems bullet proof (literally!). Just sort of maddening that we have to come up with solutions like this to deal with it. Oh well. Moving on I guess..

It's true.  My list of ergonomic complaints seems to never end though, so I try not too put to much energy into being upset about it.

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For those interested, I just received and tested the antenna mentioned above.

(http://www.digikey.c...rds=931-1119-ND)

Two of them.

 

Simple walk tests in and around the house.

Nomad to ERX2TCD

Power: 7

Freq: 2404

 

Old building.

Thick brick walls.

Nomad on a table near a wall

 

Tiny antenna:

Signal gets thru 3 walls into yard and a further few paces before dropouts.

Approx 20-25 paces altogether.

 

Nomad stock antenna:

Gets thru these walls + a further 20 paces.

At this point I am getting into parked cars.

I believe if the cars weren't there I would get still further before dropouts.

Result was same with and without RA adapter

 

The tiny antenna is easily enough for some jobs.

I will be using that until i run into problems.

 

I also tested the tiny antenna pointing down (which precludes strain on the SMA)

Very very slightly better.

Difference of a maybe 3 paces.

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For those interested, I just received and tested the antenna mentioned above.

(http://www.digikey.c...rds=931-1119-ND)

Two of them.

Simple walk tests in and around the house.

Nomad to ERX2TCD

Power: 7

Freq: 2404

Old building.

Thick brick walls.

Nomad on a table near a wall

Tiny antenna:

Signal gets thru 3 walls into yard and a further few paces before dropouts.

Approx 20-25 paces altogether.

Nomad stock antenna:

Gets thru these walls + a further 20 paces.

At this point I am getting into parked cars.

I believe if the cars weren't there I would get still further before dropouts.

Result was same with and without RA adapter

The tiny antenna is easily enough for some jobs.

I will be using that until i run into problems.

I also tested the tiny antenna pointing down (which precludes strain on the SMA)

Very very slightly better.

Difference of a maybe 3 paces.

Great test. Thanks.

Have you tried comparing them in the open air / line of sight?

Cheers,

Evan

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Great test. Thanks.

Have you tried comparing them in the open air / line of sight?

Cheers,

Evan

Not yet.

Still waiting on more antennae to arrive.

Then I'll do more tests including open air line of sight

 

These are on their way:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-4GHz-5dBi-Omni-WIFI-Antenna-SMA-MALE-for-wireless-router-/290848539329?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:IE:3160

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-4-GHz-5-dBi-Omni-wifi-Antenna-BNC-for-wireless-router-/300479593163?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:IE:3160

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290607815327

http://www.ebay.com/itm/U-fl-to-BNC-female-with-nut-pigtail-cable-/330313219623?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:IE:3160

 

Point to note.

There is a giant radio mast on my property.

 

Not sure what it transmits but I believe a telecom company is up there and some kind of node/relay for emergency services.

 

Obviously not 2.4, but busy air none the less.

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  • 1 year later...
On 3/5/2015 at 10:39 AM, Jose Frias said:

 

They work fine for what I do, which is mostly corporate, at most 20 feet away from camera with line of sight.

 

Haven't done any significant or thorough testing to compare with the stock rubber duck antenna, but I assume it has less range, as those have some gain (I think +4dBi IIRC).

Jose are you still using this antenna? I'm trying to consolidate my bag but the 8inch antenna gets in the way. So seeing that a year has past wanted to get your current feedback on that antenna. I'm thinking of just using my 4inch from my camera link just wonder if range varies a lot.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On July 21, 2016 at 4:57 AM, GAGaudio said:

Jose are you still using this antenna? I'm trying to consolidate my bag but the 8inch antenna gets in the way. So seeing that a year has past wanted to get your current feedback on that antenna. I'm thinking of just using my 4inch from my camera link just wonder if range varies a lot.

I'm currently using the Sound Guys Solution Zaxnet Amp with a short stubby, I'm very happy with it.

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11 hours ago, Abe Dolinger said:

Cool! It's an active amp, right? Hirose powered? Any range tests?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been looking for something like this. 

Correct, active amp. It has a DC jack on one of the sides, and I have a power cable wired to hirose to power off of my Audioroot distro. It's very low power draw, about 100mA. It's a 1W amp, OEM by Sunhans for Sound Guys Solutions, but specially tuned and filtered to work with Zaxnet.

I have done some very unscientific tests, and have found there to be 25-50% range increase overall with just a rubber duckie straight on the amp. More impressive though is the better reception through walls and other hard surfaces. I'm using it on my current show to transmit audio and timecode to cameras and haven't had a single drop out in audio according to camera operators, even with some of them being in other rooms or areas, though I haven't been over 50 feet away from them either.

I would imagine that a different / directional antenna would maybe provide increased range towards a specific direction, but on this show cameras can be in any direction so probably not ideal for me right now. I remember seeing Sam Kashefi post a small directional antenna not long ago, it looked good.

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