Author Topic: MOVED - Satellite Dish Wifi  (Read 10717 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Seth7

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 26
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • No Personal Text Set by User
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2013, 10:22:24 pm »
wish there was a chaparalle type feed horn for 2.4Ghz that was DIY ....

Offline rossw

  • Senior Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 879
  • Karma: +35/-0
  • Grumpy-old-Unix-Admin
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2013, 10:27:17 pm »
Ok so just as I'm seeing with the dipole, the biquad is going to have yet a different ideal focal length than the dipole and original LNB?

Almost certainly. A dipole has a very wide angle of radiation and will need to be "quite" close to the dish. However, that will also mess with its characteristic impedance and you may not get a good match the the xmitter/receiver if its too far out.

I can't remember the polar radiation pattern from a biquad, but it's going to be somewhat better than a dipole in this purpose, and will want to be further away from the dish surface.

Offline tomw

  • Not as bad as you might think
  • Senior Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 739
  • Karma: +35/-0
  • hoplophobic people will fear my lifestyle
    • Zubbly's photos!
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #17 on: June 23, 2013, 09:18:53 am »
Ah ok posts clashed Ross....

Ok so just as I'm seeing with the dipole, the biquad is going to have yet a different ideal focal length than the dipole and original LNB?

Steve

My vote is "yes".

Probably closer so the "sweet spot" covers the element?


All my RF experience is from the old days before they had such high frequencies in common use.

So I could be all wet.

Tom (who learned electrickery on valves not transistors!
Do NOT mistake me for any kind of "expert".

( ?° ?? ?°)


24 Trina 310 watt modules, SMA SunnyBoy 7.7 KW Grid Tie inverter.

I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise, We climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies

Offline Seth7

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 26
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • No Personal Text Set by User
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2013, 09:24:06 pm »
Any one know if a Ku band feed horn would workout ?

Offline rossw

  • Senior Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 879
  • Karma: +35/-0
  • Grumpy-old-Unix-Admin
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2013, 09:42:29 pm »
Any one know if a Ku band feed horn would workout ?

It's completely the wrong frequency for any WiFi.
Ku is 12-18GHz, most WIFI is either 2.4 or 5.8GHz

Offline MadScientist267

  • Impossible Condition Curator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1514
  • Karma: +44/-4
  • Rules? What rules?
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2013, 11:51:01 pm »
Several versions of ideas coming from all over the place now, thank you all, and keep the ideas/discussion going if you would por favor... ;)

Some of this has been a waiting game, connectors, cables, designs, ideas, and so on. There's at least one more dipole experiment on the way that I haven't so much as seen yet (good friend down the road is retired and just wanted to help out and see what he could come up with)... I'll be getting my first peek at that tomorrow at some point if all goes well.

I did another quickie dipole of my own the other night, no math, no real planning, just roughly eyeballed the parabola and did a little shaping by using an LED spotlight to attempt to focus the whole thing. With light, it looked plausible more as one might have expected it to look, but when it came down to it, the meters told a different story. My theory is that since there is no sub-structure whatsoever to this thing that it deformed as the tinkering progressed, and well, as you can see, the antenna ended up WAY further away from the reflector than the light test suggested it should be.

This thing ain't even close to ideal, but did do better than just the antenna standing alone without the reflector behind it. Easy enough to test, the reflector can be just picked up and removed without disturbing the rest of it.

These dipole tests aren't about the final product, I'm using them as a learning tool and as baselines to compare design to design. What you see below is about half as potent as the dish version posted that started this thread.



2408-0
The view from the target side. Its pretty apparent even from here that the antenna isn't in the butter zone; you can see the "shadow" of the dipole just to either side of the actual antenna.



2410-1
A shot from the back. Really all I'm illustrating here is that its just a cut up and deformed wide mouth plastic jug.



2412-2
A shot more from directly in front of the van.



2414-3
Here it becomes blatantly obvious that the shape of the parabola had become rather distorted and just how far the focal point had been shifted forward. I was probably getting more direct radiating behavior than anything else at this point, but still had a decent signal (the antenna by itself test mentioned above was performed after this shot was taken).

So far, my conclusions are that antennas are strange creatures. There are so many variables that contribute to the performance of any given design, its not even funny... LOL

I'm looking forward to seeing what my buddy down the road here has come up with, as well as trying the biquad and a handful of others I've seen and/or heard about.

Ross, you mentioned other forms of the quad design the other night in IRC... Any chance you'd elaborate? :)

Steve
Wanted: Schrödinger's cat, dead and alive.

Offline Seth7

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 26
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • No Personal Text Set by User
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #21 on: June 25, 2013, 12:37:02 am »
Any one know if a Ku band feed horn would workout ?

It's completely the wrong frequency for any WiFi.
Ku is 12-18GHz, most WIFI is either 2.4 or 5.8GHz

Darn decimal point ... wish some places would not list every thing in Mhz ....

Offline Seth7

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 26
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • No Personal Text Set by User
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #22 on: June 25, 2013, 12:41:01 am »
I shouldnt try to read stuff like this when im up an hour past my sleepy time ...

http://www.w1ghz.org/antbook/conf/high_efficiency_prime_feeds.pdf

Offline MadScientist267

  • Impossible Condition Curator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1514
  • Karma: +44/-4
  • Rules? What rules?
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #23 on: July 03, 2013, 03:18:26 am »
 Yeah that about made my head explode... You're not the only one LOL

I've been poking around a bit, reading a lot of stuff that resembles the above linked document, and asking lots of questions...

Came up with a cantenna made quick and dirty style and based on just some concepts that I thought would work. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I present to you the CAN'T-enna:

2426-0
Error #1: Not long enough, and not the correct diameter. But it is round. :)



2428-1
Error #2: I thought a dish like structure would work better than a flat reflector. Bzzzzt.



2430-2
Error #3: It was brought to my attention that the inherent oxide layer that forms on aluminum naturally could potentially interfere with the ground connection. Given that this isn't even close to a "real" connector, I think that part of it didn't work out that bad and makes a halfway decent test jig for this type of thing. Its the broken off mounting shaft for a small lever switch.



2432-3
Error #4: This isn't the greatest angle to see it either but between this and the above, hopefully one can get the idea that the stub is way too close to the back of the can.  It's also smaller gauge than it should be apparently, but given that it's a quick and dirty with just the center conductor tinned, I've stashed away that little tidbit for when I make the real deal.

Designs are on pause ATM, but I'll be getting back into it shortly. I've gathered some parts during this brief hiatus, as well as an eye on another design I'd like to try out.

Stay tuned...

Steve
Wanted: Schrödinger's cat, dead and alive.

Offline MadScientist267

  • Impossible Condition Curator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1514
  • Karma: +44/-4
  • Rules? What rules?
Re: My whack satellite dish wifi
« Reply #24 on: August 22, 2013, 08:05:32 pm »
Ok, got a little more serious this time, and it paid off... Finally was able to throw a little time at it and see where it went. This is what I came up with.

I went with the bicircle antenna, as it was apparently one of the higher gain antennas for it's simplicity, claims of +14dbA by one guy out on the interwebernets. Probably not too far fetched.. I'm currently putting this up while connected to an AP that has never shown up on the radar before now, so things are looking good.

There's still no dish in the mix, as I'm looking into seeing how far I can get without it since it is rather obnoxious for one, and is also a pain to aim. Less footprint is better up top. ;)

The raw parts:

2534-0
3.5 ft of RG58 (I didn't need quite that much, but left a little extra for both error and in case I needed to redo the connection in the antenna due to a meltdown courtesy of the torch... turns out I didn't need it)... The gland/standoff is a small rolled up piece of the sheet with a crimp cut into it at the end for the braid. The elements themselves, 123mm of 2mm solid copper wire, and a reflector made out of the same sheet the standoff was cut from. It's dimensions are 142mm x 102mm, slightly oversized. My understanding is that these are a minimum dimension, and that a little extra is ok, so I made them just slightly bigger than the minimum for the longest wavelength in the band calls for. And of course, someday, I'll need a new scale reference, but for now, the smokes work :)



2536-1
Here's the business end after assembly. I was a little bummed that the torch screwed up my nice shiny copper, but such is life.



2538-2
A shot from the back where the coax goes in.



2540-3
A shot from the top down.



2542-4
A shot from the side.



It didn't turn out too bad considering it was my first attempt at one, and I didn't use anything more than the most basic of hand tools to put it together. The trickiest part is getting the rings perched up on top of the standoff just right while applying enough heat to melt and flow the solder, but not make goo out of the cable and it's innards in the process. I ended up using the torch down running with a minimal flame and assisting the iron by heating the side of the tip (it's one of those cheap radio shack 40W deals). That seemed to work out ok.

I intend to at least try this with the dish, but I can say that as it sits right now, I'm reasonably satisfied with the results with it running by itself.

Until next time...

Steve
Wanted: Schrödinger's cat, dead and alive.