Felix,
I noticed on your hackaday write-up that you have a commercial antenna soldered to the board. I have looked thru a number of forum postings but have not found any direct references. Can you supply some purchasing info? I am looking for an all weather solution.
I've bought a bunch of samples at one time from a vendor that doesn't have them available any more. They did not show any advantage over the wire monopole in fact the wire seems a bit more performant. It's merely for aesthetics and like you say for weather nodes, but even there a little silicone goes a long way. My mailbox notifier would never be so stealthy if I used a big fat black antenna sticking out of my mailbox :)
A thin short wire that blends with the color of the mailbox is invisible.
Is there a name for the connector/mount that attaches to the PCB at the antenna?
I think what you're looking for is "edge mount SMA connector". Take note that it's SMA and not RP-SMA, the latter is mostly for WiFi. The very small connector is U.FL or UFL connector, and you need an UFL-SMA pigtail to connect a 900 MHz rubber ducky antenna or similar to it.
I have some edge mounted sma connectors. Not obvious to me how they mate with the Moteino R4 board. A picture (I am new at this antenna stuff) would be nice.
It's not rocket science but you do have to get a little creative. There are different width SMA edge connectors but most will fit between the GND edge pin hole and the ANT pin hole. Solder those two and it should stick to the PCB quite solid, make sure you're not touching other pins. Here's a picture, there's more if you scroll left/right in flickr:
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5499/10469650164_55fb66ddbd.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/gXaGeJ)Moteino + SMA / U.FL (https://flic.kr/p/gXaGeJ) by Felix Rusu, LowPowerLab.com (https://www.flickr.com/people/15304611@N03/), on Flickr
Pretty funny! I didn't even try to see if the SMA connector could be mounted on the Moteino card like that! I've set up my 'carrier' cards to pick up the antenna signal directly below the Moteino board and then route the signal to its edge where there are pads for an edge mount SMA connector. You're so clever... :)
I'll have to try it tomorrow!
Tom
I would have put an SMA footprint on the board except it's too large and there's not enough space + clearance for it. Plus most people would not need it, but you still can solder it directly like I mentioned above if you're careful. MoteinoMEGAs have the SMA and uFL footprints.
Quote from: Felix on December 05, 2014, 11:02:26 AM
I would have put an SMA footprint on the board except it's too large and there's not enough space + clearance for it. Plus most people would not need it, but you still can solder it directly like I mentioned above if you're careful. MoteinoMEGAs have the SMA and uFL footprints.
Other than a u.FL pigtail (which normally gets you to SMA), are there any antennae in the RFM69 range that have u.FL connectors???
But... maybe it was 'free' given the footprint for the SMA...
Tom
To be honest, I'd too be glad to see a revision of the Moteino with a UFL footprint. From my experience a tuned antenna gives me better RSSI stability and a few more dBs too. The soldering of the connectors is possible but a little fiddly and prone to breakage. These small UFL connectors are pretty tight.
Quote from: kobuki on December 05, 2014, 07:16:58 PM
<...snip>These small UFL connectors are pretty tight.
Good thing whoever worked on the WiFi MiniPCI standard chose this connector. That made it a high volume, low cost connector. 8)
Yes, but the unfortunate downside is that you either need a pigtail or an antenna which is already prepared with a cable ending in a UFL connector. Those costs add up, but I still think the UFL footprint would be very easy to add to the existing layout.