DIY GPS Antenna
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:54 am
Hi everybody,
Guided by our ham radio friends, we looked into building homemade GPS antennas. I would like to collect different user experiences in this thread here. Starting with the theoretical calculation, each arm of the dipole antenna should be one-quarter of the carrier frequency's wavelength. For a frequency of about 1.5 GHz, this boils down to about λ/4=19/4=4.25cm per antenna arm. The simplest way to build it is to use the conductor and the woven shield of a coaxial cable bent opposite. Taped to a window, about 20 satellites can be received at all times, while the signal is good enough for a couple of satellites to be used. Horizontal and vertical precision is about 4m. Time resolution compared with out-of-the-box antennas with our detectors will be evaluated shortly.
Guided by our ham radio friends, we looked into building homemade GPS antennas. I would like to collect different user experiences in this thread here. Starting with the theoretical calculation, each arm of the dipole antenna should be one-quarter of the carrier frequency's wavelength. For a frequency of about 1.5 GHz, this boils down to about λ/4=19/4=4.25cm per antenna arm. The simplest way to build it is to use the conductor and the woven shield of a coaxial cable bent opposite. Taped to a window, about 20 satellites can be received at all times, while the signal is good enough for a couple of satellites to be used. Horizontal and vertical precision is about 4m. Time resolution compared with out-of-the-box antennas with our detectors will be evaluated shortly.