Biquad omni antenna for zaxnet

[osa]

I built some dipole whip antennas today thanks to the help here with the lectro video posted. came across this along the way:

curious to know if anyone has used anything like this with a qifb transmitter or similar for zaxcom ifb's? i use my erx's for tc and camera guides but i have dropped the use of erx's as headsets with bag use because i havent been able to get successful range without many dropouts compared to my comteks. this seemed appropriate to try but wanted to see if anyone else has had success lately with smaller antenna rigs like this or other options.

-Ken

 

[Philip Perkins]

Brilliant.

 

[Pete D]

Whelp, looks like I've got another rainy day project. Thanks for sharing this

[osa]

I want to build one as well but y concern with my setup is, it might step on my Comteks with more whine assuming it works as indicated, no? I keep my zaxnet transmission level at 3 if I am using mix of ERX's and Comteks together (ERX's strictly sync boxes). 7 if only ERX's Ugide tracks and Timecode and/or IFB's). would love to go all ERX's if i could feel as confident with my ERX transmission as i do my comteks in my bag. Will report back if I get a rainy day sooner than later

-Ken

[resonate]

Andrew is the man. 

[AnuarYahya]

I think he made a mistake in the video but I could be wrong. According to me he mixed up his coax cables. He said he liked the RG316 because its more rigid than the RG402 but I think its the other way around. Am I right?  

[AnuarYahya]

and look at this one!

[osa]

14 hours ago, AnuarYahya said:

I think he made a mistake in the video but I could be wrong. According to me he mixed up his coax cables. He said he liked the RG316 because its more rigid than the RG402 but I think its the other way around. Am I right?  

i ordered some cables in both styles that i hope arrive today and should be able to answer this. I am anxoius to start building these asap and hopefully will see positive results! Will measure with my meter and post my findings  

-Ken

 

[AnuarYahya]

I know that the greater the number of turns = the greater the directivity or antenna gain from a helical antenna.. Does anybody know if you could get even more gain if you where to build the quadrifilar antenna twice as tall while maintaining the distane between the wires the same? Ill try to do some tests later. 

[Pete D]

Got around to building one of these. I also noticed he seemed to get the coax numbers mixed up. Anyway, I figured I'd do a test between the biquad and two sizes of dipole I had around. I didn't get to putting epoxy putty or a coat of paint on the antenna because I wanted to test it as soon as I could. Here are the antennas (with a quarter for scale):

I tested the zaxnet output of a nomad with the transmitter frequency set to 2448 and the transmitter power set to 7. The receiver (rf explorer) was ~12 feet away.

In case it's difficult to see, the larger dipole came in at -51, the smaller dipole at -61, and the biquad at -54. I'm curious what other folks have noticed because my antenna's performance doesn't seem to be in line with what was showing in the video. Maybe i need to be more exacting with the lengths of each side of the antenna.

I will say that regardless of performance this antenna seems like it would be too fragile for bag use. Maybe not actually snapping, but definitely getting bent out of shape easily.