JAWUG

A while ago I found instructions on how to make a wifi patch antenna, the thing was supposed to be better than the bought ones as the construction methods are supposed to be better, since most bought ones use some dielectric instead of air to separate the panels.

Anyway, construction was simple enough. I used a hot chocolate tin, cut the top and bottom off and flattened out, this gave me a nice thin easy to cut piece of metal that was sturdier than trying to use tin foil.

I won't go into how to make this thing, as the results were awful, and I don't believe my construction methods were at fault. The patch displayed good vertical and horizontal polarization but terrible gain. Tests showed that the patch had higher gain in the higher channels so I can only assume the given dimensions are horribly wrong in some way. More than 25 meters and the AP could not be picked up anymore. After modeling the thing in software to try figure out what was wrong it would appear the design has a pretty bizarre gain pattern and awful SWR.

I guess this again proves you shouldn’t believe everything you find on the net, no matter how convincing it looks. Next time before constructing anything I think I will model the thing first.

Here is a pic of the completed patch, you can still see the price tag on the one panel.