Antenna Testing

Here are some antennas tested by one of our community members, Brianna (VA3QWQ).

For reference, these are the ideal values for antennas:

SWR: 1.0

Impedance match: 50 ohms

Reactance: 0 ohms

With reactance at 0 ohm an antenna would be purely resistive which is ideal. A positive value means that the antenna has some inductance at that frequency, and a negative value means the antenna has some capacitance.

All tests were performed at 910 MHz, since that is the frequency our mesh uses.

Rokland 4dBi Helium Hotspot Fiberglass

Link: Rokland

SWR: 1.29

Impedance: 64.6 ohms

Reactance (j-value) : +2.6 ohms

NanoVNA:

Slinkdsco Long-Range LORA Antenna (915 MHz Grey)

Link: AliExpress

SWR: 1.27

Impedance: 41.3 ohms

Reactance (j-value) : +7.0 ohms

NanoVNA:

GizONT 915Mhz antenna

Link: Space Hedgehog

SWR: 1.36

Impedance: 37.6 ohms

Reactance (j-value) : -5.7 ohms

NanoVNA:

Slinkdsco Waterproof 5.8dBi Meshtastic Lora 915MHz Fiberglass Antenna

Link: Amazon

SWR: 1.18

Impedance: 45.8 ohms

Reactance (j-value) : +6.7 ohms

NanoVNA: