Hi All,
Quick question, does an antenna have to be for a specific band such as Zigbee or can any antenna be screwed onto for example the Sonoff Zigbee Combi Stick?
Asking as I’m moving my server to an enclosed rack and wanted to buy an antenna to put on top or away from the server
An antenna is designed for a particular band (or a set of bands) so if your Zigbee operates in the 900 MHz range - the antenna has to resonate in that frequency range.
You can relocate antennas away for your equipment but keep in mind that the cable you choose have to match the impedance of the antenna - typically 50 ohm and the lower loss the cable has the better performance you will get as the cable loss adds directly to the Noise Figure of your receiver (and adds similar loss to your TX signal).
Sometimes it can be advantageous to separate equipment and antenna in scenarios where the equipment is placed in a shielded environment or in scenarios where the equipment radiates noise in the frequency range that your antenna and radio operates at.
The sonoff stick is USB, isn’t it? It is best to use an USB extension cord anyway to keep away from USB3 interference, so you can keep the original antenna and just place the dongle outside the rack.
Technically yes and that’s probably what I will do but was just curious as I had some spare antennas from a few MBs and expansions card so wanted to know if I could re-use
Thanks for info! Very helpful