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Best antenna setup for a high RF area

KBerryman

New Member
Mar 24, 2017
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I have a relatively unique issue. I work for a company that records racing audio for multiple classes of motorsports. We do this using a set of software defined radios (SDR). We need to be able to receive broadcast between 450 - 470MHz. There is also a lot of other RF signal through out the rest of spectrum including local tv broadcast, wifi, and emergency frequencies. We currently use a hardware bandpass filter to help remove the signal out side of the 450-470MHz that we are looking for. We do not do any transmission at all, just receiving. Currently we are using an Air802 6.8dB gain omni-directional dipole antenna tuned to 450-470MHz. We are getting a fair bit of noise on all of our recordings and I am looking into changing out the antenna to see if we could get signal or at least better SNR. I was thinking that moving to a lower gain or unity antenna may help, but I'm not really sure. I wasn't sure if any one had any experience with this type of situation and could possible point me in the right direction. Thanks
 

I can't see why a lower gain antenna would help your situation. In fact a higher gain antenna may help in that if it is directional it will enhance the S/N ratio of the desired signal while reducing the interfering signals if they are in a different area where the antenna is not pointed. I doubt that this will occur however given what you are doing and I suspect most of the comms are coming from the same general area however it may help reject the higher power signals like coming from TV and commercial users in the area. Have you identified where the interference may be coming from? Deeper bandpass filters may be the answer and sometime decreasing the RF gain can help if the desired signal is strong enough. Reducing gain can actually improve the S/N ratio if the issue is overloading of the receiver.
 
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