The Shootout

My plan was to get relative performance measurements for various designs (including mine) of homebrew antennas for 802.11b (WiFi) wireless networks. To do this, I setup a wireless link and changed only the antenna- recording each antennas' performance under identical conditions. I didn't compare them to a commercial directional antenna as my only one has a male connector and I don't have the right cable to hook it up yet. The contestants were (click on each for design specifications).

The Performance Summary

The results surprised me! In our test, the Flickenger Pringles can did a little better than my modified Pringles design. Both did no better than the Lucent omnidirectional. Now this is just on raw signal strength, noise rejection due to directivity still makes a directional antenna a better choice for some uses even if there is no gain benefit. The waveguides all soundly trounced the Pringles can designs. I mean they stomped them into the ground on signal strength - as much as 9 dB better. Every three dB is a doubling in power - that's three doublings (8x increase)!

Of the waveguides, the Nalley's "Big Chunk" took top marks. It was followed by the Hunts Pasta Sauce, my modified coffee can, and the Flickenger coffee can in that order. My three waveguide designs, which utilized the correct theoretical spacing, out performed the Flickenger Yuban coffee can handily. It seems that the design formulas for the waveguide design made a sizeable difference in performance. In the yagis, it didn't matter much. This could be because neither Rob's nor my designs are anywhere near right for optimum performance for a Yagi. I've decided that Yagi design is not for the timid or non-radio-expert.

With these results, I'm convinced that the waveguide design is the way to go for cheap wireless networking. The performance is good, the cost is very low and the skill required is minimal. If you can eat a big can of stew, you can make a high performance antenna.

The How To

Build your own Tin Can Waveguide WiFi Antenna (Cantenna). It's the easiest antenna design I know of.

Copyright 2003-2007 Gregory Rehm - All rights reserved.

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contact the author: greg@turnpoint.net