UPDATE on Seeking Ideas for RoadTesting Antennas

A lot of people will argue that the only way to test an antenna would be with very expensive instrumentation and in an electronically clean environment.  While testing antennas is not my occupation or even something that I do often (more likely never), there are some simple ways to test them.  Way back in the dark ages, when AM and FM broadcasting was viewed as the highest frequencies that people would deal with, a radio station would need to test their signal patterns, by driving around and measuring signal strength using a tuned voltmeter.  These days, the same can be done, but simply by using the RSI (Relative Strength Index) values available within most receivers.  While working on a Zigbee meshed system, our clever RF engineer, would set up a meshed system in an unobstructed warehouse, with nodes populated through out the building.  He could then test a node, by broadcasting messages and collecting RSI values from nodes within the building (the messages needed to be qualified, so that re-transmitted, or bounced signals would be ignored) and build a signal strength profile map.  We mostly used this test to determine if our node placed inside of a fixture was overly attenuated due to all the surrounding materials.

A modification of this method could prove to be helpful in testing antennas by mapping out RSI values gathered from different locations around a transmitter/antenna pair.

Just a thought.

Gene

Way back in the dark ages, when AM and FM broadcasting was viewed as the highest frequencies that people would deal with, a radio station would need to test their signal patterns, by driving around and measuring signal strength

Hey less of the dark ages stuff there sonny.

When I worked for Telecom (it seems way back now) that was how we proved our coverage areas.

We had a number of existing sites, and the appropriate antenna and transmitter would be installed, and then we'd hop in a car and drive all around the Canterbury plains to prove the coverage area was acceptable.

It was interesting when we ventured into UHF, as it behaved very well in the city and even a remote town (148km away) with tall buildings yielded a surprising result.

This was of course at odds with VHF that is basically a line of sight service, although the path was half water and half open plain.

Mark

Way back in the dark ages, when AM and FM broadcasting was viewed as the highest frequencies that people would deal with, a radio station would need to test their signal patterns, by driving around and measuring signal strength

Hey less of the dark ages stuff there sonny.

When I worked for Telecom (it seems way back now) that was how we proved our coverage areas.

We had a number of existing sites, and the appropriate antenna and transmitter would be installed, and then we'd hop in a car and drive all around the Canterbury plains to prove the coverage area was acceptable.

It was interesting when we ventured into UHF, as it behaved very well in the city and even a remote town (148km away) with tall buildings yielded a surprising result.

This was of course at odds with VHF that is basically a line of sight service, although the path was half water and half open plain.

Mark