Improving covered area

[NHSARainer]

Hi,

I know for the experts it might be boring but for me it is interesting.

Yesterday I made a simple ground plane with 4 legs 1/4 wavelength and today I made another one with 8 legs.

Tested the 4 leg yesterday and got up to about 10 planes and right now I am testing the 8 legged one and I am getting 7 planes. I think I need to test it the full day and see how it develops. The length of the center and 8 legs is around 68.5 mm same as the 4 legged one. I am using a RTL-SDR dongle for the tests.

Distance yesterday was up to about 250km with the 4 legged. 8-0

Can I run both antennas at the same time feeding the dongle ?

Having fun doing this.

Rainer

[abcd567]

The plane count, message rate, max distance are dependent on:

(1) The Air traffic.
The air trsffic is not constant and varies with day of week and time of the day. You must measure these parameters for both antennas at the same time.

(2) Location & placement of two antennas.
If you want real comparison between two antennas, mount two antennas at same location, at same height with horizontal distance between the two not less than 30cm and not more than 100cm. Then use 2 dongles plugged into  2 rpi and compare results.

Above is called side-by-side test.
Please see photo below in which I have conducted side-by-side test for comparing V-Stub antenna with Flightaware Antenna. 

I have used two (2) RPi and two (2) dongles,  one set of Pi+dongle for Flightaware antenna, and the other Pi+dongle for V-Stub antenna.

[NHSARainer]

Thanks

[abcd567]

For info abcd, Reiner is in Mexico

Alan

Thanks for informing.
I misunderstood he is from Germany because he used German word "Grüße" (=Regards) in one of his posts.

abcd

[Runway 31]

I thought that would be the case

Alan