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Howto...: Howto: Make a 'Brick' directional antenna
Posted on Saturday, November 13 @ 05:00:00 CST by rclark

Howto: Make your own antennas The Brick Antenna is a very simple, very cheap antenna. A pair of Brick antennas will make a link over a 1km distance (Clear Line of Sight).


5-8 dBi Brick Antenna Design

Here is a design for a simple antenna. While relatively low gain, the big advantages of this antenna are:

  • Will not Rust. While the Coffee Can antenna is also simple, it is difficult to rust-proof.

  • Small.

  • Light. 650 grams including U-bolt.

  • Rugged. Very strong, and easy to mount solidly.

  • Easy construction. No curves!

  • Cheap.. if you have off-cuts left over from building a Waveguide antenna.

Many will recognize that this design is really just a variation on the popular 'Coffee Can' or 'Pringles Can' design. The only advantages of the Brick antenna over those antennas is that; it will not rust, and can be mounted externally. In short - it is ready for permanent mounting.

The full instructions for building your own Brick Antenna are available for download below. Those instructions assume you have 3mm Aluminium tubing. But, as I recently ran out of the Aluminium tubing, I have started making Brick Antennas from the same material as the Downpipe antennas - i.e 95 x 45 x 0.4 mm ZincAlum. The performance is identical.

You can purchase a Brick Antenna kit. The kit comes with all parts, and the metal has been pre-cut with all slots. See our Online Store .

The 'standard' brick comes with a V-clamp, ready to mount on a pole

Optionally, it can come with no mounting section, making a great signal booster for use within a house, or 'through-the-window' and 'across-the-road' applications.

Performance

In the plot at the left, you can see three zones:
Left: PCMCIA card by itself
Middle: Brick antenna (wrong polarization)
Right: Brick Antenna (correct Polarization)

Compared to the PCMCIA card alone:
Noise: reduced by approx 8dB
Signal: Increased by approx: 13 dB
SNR: Improved by approx 21 dB

(Click on picture to see full scale)

Download the design.


Buy a Brick Kit

You can purchase a Brick Antenna kit. The kit comes with all parts, and the metal has been pre-cut with all slots. See our Online Store .


 
Related Links
· More about Howto: Make your own antennas
· News by rclark


Most read story about Howto: Make your own antennas:
Howto: Make a 'Downpipe' Slotted Waveguide Omni antenna


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