This project has been fun so far. I built a corner reflector antenna for 2.4 and 5 GHz. I had an old Dell server that I was having difficulty getting rid of. The trash man wouldn’t take it so I knew I’d eventually have to disassemble it and throw away the parts. I was thinking about building an antenna for microwave use and needed some sheet metal to make a reflector. It dawned on that the old server had just the parts I needed.
Many years ago, I aquired an external wifi antenna. Made by T-Link, it had 3 ports for 3 antennas and a cable for each one about 2 feet long. I took out the middle one so I had two antenna mounts back-to-back. The mount is about a 1/2-wavelength high. The antennas came from a new router I plan to use for AREDN (Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network). I haven’t disassembled the antennas to measure the inner wire but it’s made to cover 2.4 abnd 5 GHz so it’s likely a compromise between the two. It’s a mystery whether I’m dealing with half-waves, full-wave longwires, or what. As a precaution, I took the coax from each antenna and as close as I could get to the feedpoint, I made a small, 5-turn coil out and secured it with zip ties. My goal here it to simply prevent stray RF from using the cable as an antenna, a coaxial choke balun.
Even with my black paint job, it’s ugly, but will it work? Testing commences today. The antenna is on the porch and pointed in a direction where visibility is good. The problem is, I don’t really have anything to measure the RF at any point in this circuit. It seems that the best I can do is use a laptop computer and drive a few blocks down the street and check the signal level and see if I can ping the router. The problem with this method is that the laptop will likely still hear the router long after the router can no longer hear the laptop. This is because I don’t have a directional antenna I can point at the corner reflector. Such an arrangement would give a better estimate of how far this antenna can talk.
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