What kind of antenna do I need
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Why use a mono pole whip instead of a rubber ducky, for your mesh radio either Meshtastic or Reticulum?
That’s an involved question. I’ll do my best to answer.
Short answer is it depends.
If you’re looking for maximum radio to radio distances not properly utilizing the mesh networking capabilities then you want a whip. If you are properly utilizing the mesh networking capabilities then you should use what ever antenna you feel like.
So we have to back up a bit. With mesh networking capabilities you don’t need to be able to make a transmission from 100km away. You can make short hops and therefore can reduce transmission power for a smaller RF footprint.
But if you don’t have many friends/teammates and then there is a chance that you need to be able to reach further between nodes.
Hope that makes sense.
So our recommendation is to understand your need first. Then select the antenna after you understand how you want the network to operate.
Let’s look at it from a potential real world situation.
You have 5 “hunting” partners. All 5 have a radio. You have a base station at camp and a Mobil node mounted in a vehicle.
That’s 7 total radios for your mesh.
You’re going to want a high gain high elevation antenna on both the base station and the vehicular mounted radios.
If all 5 “hunters” are in reasonably close proximity to each other (within a couple miles) then having a small antenna on 4 radios and one member of the team has a larger antenna you would have a very capable network going.
Check out our other blog posts about radios and mesh networking.
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