MoteinoMEGA with trace antenna

Over the past few months a friend has helped me create a MoteinoMEGA variant with a trace antenna tuned for between 768Mhz to 1.16GHz. So this should be great for 868-915mhz. I’ve tested this variant myself (915mhz) and I was surprised how well it performs compared to a wire monopole (which will still be better given the type of antenna). I did not do extensive testing but I am pretty confident this turned out as a great antenna and I am offering the remainder of this batch for those eager to have one and perhaps do more testing on their own. Depending on the response I may or may not ever make more of these, we shall see. The same antenna could be used with any other Moteino but I want to see the response of the users before I invest too much capital in new batches of Moteinos. The ANT pad and u.FL footprint are still there if for some reason the user wants to cut off the trace antenna and use one of those instead with a monopole or different antenna. Otherwise everything else is the same, well, except the yellow soldermask which has a nice orange hue from my new PCB supplier. I will offer these with RFM69W/HW in 868/915mhz or without a transceiver, your choice. Enjoy.

9 thoughts on “MoteinoMEGA with trace antenna

  1. Great too ! Is there any chance that you release the schematics/routing of this trace antenna ? I’ve seen several designs and tried some by myself without “a clear success” : I will definitely try this one if possible.

    • At this time I consider this highly experimental. Also integrating an antenna into a design depends on much more than just a trace on a PCB. There are matching components, and physical characteristics of the PCB, copper, soldermask, GND plane, vias etc.

  2. This is awesome! Saves a lot of money for those using SMA connectors and antennas. I got a couple of these and tested on default settings (RFM69HW @ 55.5kbps). I got about 430 ft (130 m) before it started to lose signal. This was from inside a very dense building with several thick reinforced walls (stone and concrete) all the way outside to another building about 100 meters away. This is way better performance than I expected from a trace antenna. Very cool indeed and it does have a lot of potential. I would get about 180-200 m using a duck antenna or a wire monopole with the same settings and similar field conditions (much longer range in an open field obviously).

    • That’s quite exciting to hear, thanks very much for sharing your testing results!
      They sold out pretty fast, I will make more on my next PCB batch.

  3. Yeah! Looking forward to regular Moteinos with trace antennas. I’m curious to know how they would perform when placed inside an enclosure (plastic obviously). Will share more test results if I find something interesting.

    Do you do the pick and place in-house? Was wondering how you managed to place the capacitor and resistor on the same pad.

    • Yes P&P & reflow in house. The antenna components were picked and hand placed after the antenna was measured on a VNA. The next revision will have larger pads to better fit those. As far as regular Moteinos with trace antennas .. it might be a while.

  4. hey Felix, it seems you’re out of stock – are you planning any new batches soon? thanks!

    • I will definitely make more. Just haven’t prepared a new batch yet. I will bundle it with a coming PCB order.

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