DIY Cloverleaf & Skew Planar CP Antenna's Guide [VIDEO]

[GLEvideo]

I believe Schraut5 is a member of this forum. He is an inventive designer and scratch builder. One thing in his nicely done video presentation bothers me. The method of clamping the coax cable with locking pliers to prevent the center conductor from slipping is risky. Avoid this at all cost. Don't ever smash, kink or make sharp bends in your coax cable as this distorts the shape of the dialectric causing the distance between the center and shield conductors to change. This alters the impedance which creates standing waves (increases SWR). This is especially true at these ultra high frequencies we use. If your cable is kinked or smashed or damaged in any way, throw it away or cut past the damaged area and use only the good portion.

[IBCrazy]

^+1 especially for RG174. The inner conductor melts easily. RG316 is far more resilient to heat.

[Martinba77]

He is going to start selling the antennas?

[Dande]

Me?
I'm not going to sell antennas!
I'm going to make a vid of how to make the antenna, but only if I can make it work close to perfect.
I want to know the tings that's importent to know about the antennas I'm going to make vid about. The point of the vid is to help others to make antennas that work as good as they possible can.
I'm trying to learn as much as i can, by using the www. and ARRL. There is a "teacher" on the Uneversety collage that has a Phd.ing. in antennas, he might help me if I can get enought basic understanding in the subject.

By the way, is it possible to use any cind of metall for the antenna?
The brass wire is a bit soft in 0.5mm, so i wonder if pianowire in 0.5mm is a better solution?
The "best" coax cable for 5.8 GHz might be LMR 100? If not the LMR 200?

David

[Martinba77]

No not you Dande I mean the guy who make the video, I see now that he attach a annottation on the video saying this, or at least I interpret like an offer.

I use RG316 and have no problems so far. For the proper wire I think that recommended is MIG wire 0.6mm (0.023 in inches I think) for 5.8GHz. IMO.

[Andy08]

Just got back from testing my pair of clover leaf and SPW. They work great. It means I will do a lot more flying just using the fat shark RX instead of a tripod (Helical patch or crossfire is next on the list). Thanks Heaps Alex. I wish these antennas were around ages ago.

David. Paino wire will be a PITA to solder. Sounds like you will get away with regular copper wire for 5.8. but .030-.045 mig welder wire (copper coated steel) is recommended. See here.

Andy

[Vindfrisk]

Does it have to be copper wire? Is aluminium ok.

[IBCrazy]

Aluminum will not solder. If you can find galvanized wire, that is best.\


-Alex

[chanyote66]

aluminum has very poor inductive properties as well... thats why they dont use aluminum in electromagnets... It would make them lighter but much weaker.

[chanyote66]

would there be any benefit of using .06" over .024" for 2.4ghz? or 1.3ghz?

i know it will be more rigid but what about the rf qualities?