The antennas provided for nanoADS-B are active antennas. One amplification stage was moved from receiver board to antennas. This greatly improves performance of the system in case long antennas cables (>5m) are required. Additionally quality of the antenna cable becomes much less an issue. Power for the amplifier is provided from nanoADS-B though the antenna cable. openAir1090 provides two type of antennas. The antennas are provided in sealed outdoor tube and installation material.
Standard Antenna
The standard antenna is a well-tuned λ/4 PCB antenna for 1090MHz. The integrated amplifier includes a 1090MHz SAW filter to improve immunity against out-of-band signals like GSM. Ranges >200NM are easily possible with this antenna when it is placed in free open space with good visibility in all directions.
Technical specification:
- Radiation pattern: Omni-directional
- Polarisation: Vertical
- Gain: 1 dBi
- VSWR: <1.5
High Gain Antenna
The high gain antenna is a collinear 1090MHz antenna with a gain close to 5dBi. The more narrow band design further improves immunity against out-of-band signals. This antenna should be used when long antenna cable needs to be used (>10m) or reception range records want to be archived.
Technical specification:
- Radiation pattern: Omni-directional
- Polarisation: Vertical
- Gain: >4 dBi
- VSWR: <1.5
The antennas give perfect results in combination with nanoADS-B receiver. They can only be used with other ADS-B receivers when a bias-t device is used to feed a voltage (4-5V) to the antenna cable. The extra amplification on the antenna might lead to might lead to overloading when used with incompatible receivers.