ESP8266 Community Forum

- Thu Nov 10, 2016 1:36 am #57910

I have some ESP07 that allow the use of an external antenna. That should give better range but I have not tried it yet. There is a new version ESP07S that might have better performance but I have not received them yet. The ESP07S has 4MB flash where the ESP07 only has 512K (or maybe 1MB, I forget).

When using an external antenna use only an antenna with a short cable. At these frequency cable loss is significant when you increase the length. The is cheap long cables sold out of China. Do not use it as it has very high loss and you would be better using the trace antenna on the board.

Mount the radios high above structures. Generally higher is better. Near the ground is poor.

There are higher gain antennas and that is an option but as I have said, use the shortest cable to connect it. Higher gain antennas are directional.

I am not sure about the extending antenna solution , on this video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYLN9qH0C84

extending antenna gave only about 50 meters more then without it .

because of this I have asked about the extending WiFi router devices ...
what do you say ?

- Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:29 am #57929

I am not sure about the extending antenna solution , on this video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYLN9qH0C84

extending antenna gave only about 50 meters more then without it .

because of this I have asked about the extending WiFi router devices ...
what do you say ?

That was a significant increase, and if you are in a marginal situation then it may be enough to make things reliable. The one thing that was not mentioned in his video (or I missed that part) he didn't say if he disabled the internal antenna on the board. There is a 0 Ohm resistor that connects the chip antenna. It should be removed when using the external antenna.

That antenna is better than the pcb antenna. In his test he was getting a doubling of power. Remember that the signal does not decrease linearly with distance

There are higher gain antennas but as I said they are directional. The following is on the high gain end of the antenna spectrum. There are reasonable options in between.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4WKuEzLyNI

And

- Fri Nov 11, 2016 9:21 am #57985 Thanks you very much !