Hypothesis:
Using a (DIY) parabolic reflector behind a cloverleaf antenna will increase the cloverleaf antenna's distance.
Discussion:
I saw a video on Youtube (still looking for it; I'll post it when I find it) that shows viewers how to builld a parabolic reflector for an antenna when I came up with the idea. Seems like the pair (parabolic reflector and cloverleaf) could work in theory. I understand the cloverleaf is an omni-direction antenna, but it seems in theory it should work nonetheless.
Just wondering if anyone has tried and succeeded (or failed). The idea would be (if possible) to add the parabolic-cloverleaf antenna to a servo-based bi-lateral tracker that would not only track the UAV signal from ground station but also track the ground station signal from the UAV. The benefit is that position of the antenna becomes less relevant.
Feedback (even theoretical) is welcome.
Replies
My own home made 5.8 ghz helical for feeding a dish.
Geoffrey
Using a clover leaf antenna as a driver in a parabolic antenna has been done before, only not called a clover leaf but a circular polarized driver. Most dishes are excited by a dipole or dipole with a reflector behind it.The polarization of the clover leaf, if you use it, will change to its opposite in the parabolic array so if you have a right hand polarized antenna in your drone you'll want to excite the dish with a left hand polarization clover leaf to have a working system. A better arrangement might be to use a helical driver as all of the RF is directed at the dish and those are readily available from FPV vendors or there are directions on how to make one available on the internet. The parabolic dish is extremely narrow in beam width so pointing it at a moving target becomes a challenge. The higher the frequency the smaller the dish can be for the same amount of gain (formula in the link below). So if your using 5.8 ghz the dish can be small enough to be manageable Hope this helps.
Also see:
http://www.packratvhf.com/Article_9/Dish_Not.pdf
http://www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/reflectors/dish.php
Geoffrey