UPDATE on Seeking Ideas for RoadTesting Antennas

This is going to be difficult to roadtest.

Normally, when you design a product, and it's the first time you evaluate antennas for it, you select a couple of antennas that fit the specifications and try them all.

In this case, you only have the one antenna, so there's nothing to compare it to. Also, it's impossible to choose other antennas to compare them to, because there are no specifications to be met, so on what criteria would the other antennas be chosen?

Obviously, someone who is an expert in antennas (has dealt extensively with most of them, knows all the strengths and weaknesses of each type of antenna, knows their intended use cases, etc), could write a pertinent review, but that person is going to be very difficult to find. The fact that the community has become centered around hobbyists, not engineers, won't help.

Not sure if I would put too much value on a review that merely characterizes an antenna or sends some data using it.

When it comes to components, and this holds for any sort of specialized gear too, you want to read what an expert has to say, not someone who might not be aware of the various pitfalls (and there are many in RF design), who may or may not be able to test the DUT properly.

In my opinion, the first step should be to figure out how many such candidates are available in the active user base and then find a way to incentivize them (maybe offer the components as part of some bigger roadtest). Alternatively, you could offer a big selection of antennas, because the odds that they're interested in a particular PN is very slim, so either go with "pick any 5 you want to test" or "here's 30 models from which you can evaluate any of them".

I may be missing something here, so I'm looking forward to see what comes out of this.

Razvan

This is going to be difficult to roadtest.

Normally, when you design a product, and it's the first time you evaluate antennas for it, you select a couple of antennas that fit the specifications and try them all.

In this case, you only have the one antenna, so there's nothing to compare it to. Also, it's impossible to choose other antennas to compare them to, because there are no specifications to be met, so on what criteria would the other antennas be chosen?

Obviously, someone who is an expert in antennas (has dealt extensively with most of them, knows all the strengths and weaknesses of each type of antenna, knows their intended use cases, etc), could write a pertinent review, but that person is going to be very difficult to find. The fact that the community has become centered around hobbyists, not engineers, won't help.

Not sure if I would put too much value on a review that merely characterizes an antenna or sends some data using it.

When it comes to components, and this holds for any sort of specialized gear too, you want to read what an expert has to say, not someone who might not be aware of the various pitfalls (and there are many in RF design), who may or may not be able to test the DUT properly.

In my opinion, the first step should be to figure out how many such candidates are available in the active user base and then find a way to incentivize them (maybe offer the components as part of some bigger roadtest). Alternatively, you could offer a big selection of antennas, because the odds that they're interested in a particular PN is very slim, so either go with "pick any 5 you want to test" or "here's 30 models from which you can evaluate any of them".

I may be missing something here, so I'm looking forward to see what comes out of this.

Razvan