Amateur Radio

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antenna question (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 weeks ago by shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip to c/amateur_radio@sh.itjust.works

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/33672853

So I live in a small city of around 50,000 people and we have a router that's 200 feet up on a tower with a 5.8 DBI antenna.

There's a guy 17.5 miles away who wants to get into the mesh and his node is on a 30-foot flagpole and also has a 5.8 DBI antenna.

There is no major elevation change between the two nodes and according to a distance calculator, the line of sight between both antennas should be about 24 miles, which would cover the distance with no problem.

With that said, the nodes are not connecting together. And I'm wondering if that's because of the 5.8 DBI antenna gain on both sides, or if there's something else I might be missing.

Edit: On a side note, I live 3.7 miles from the router, and it has trouble hearing me, but I do not have trouble hearing it with my T1000E. And I'm also wondering if that's because of the antenna gain on the router side.

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[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not yet. was hoping an omni would work so that anybody around them could also get into the local mesh. With an omni, anybody within 8 miles of them should be able to get in with a yagi though. That would be much more limited in any other direction besides the front lobe.

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

They could get a really long yagi, and connect to your omni. That sounds like the most reasonable solution. Do you know what power and sensitivity is used?

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

I think we may have found the problem. Turns out they are using a three-foot jumper of RG-316 on 900 MHz. So my guess is that the antenna is not really getting any power at all and the cable is acting as the antenna.