Modded My Z! (again) Options

[craigtyson]

I don't think it will work folded.  The very first one I built, I didn't use a template.  It had a slight curve to it.  It became not as omni as it should have been.  You'd have to tilt it this way and that to get it to make a connection.  I think doing a folded antenna with this desigh would probably kill it.  I've seen somewhere on the net a mini conifer antenna with a popsicle stick as the beam.  That was a pretty cool looking mini directional antenna.  There's also a couple "toothpick" designs that don't require any coax to build.  You will still need a pigtail for any of this though.  May as well buy an antenna at the same time.  The connections on the wifi card are too small and delicate to be soldering to.  Like I said on my page, I killed my iPaq's wifi card trying it without a pigtail.

As I say Il look into some of my old antenna design books. I realised looking at the design you linked to that Id seen somthing similar but used on high power SW transmitters where you can use metal insulators at 1/2 wave intervals as there is no power at that point. Iv also seen a guy who used to etch realy high Q coils and antennas into multi layer PCBs he was able to tune the design to pretty much any frequency as long as the board was the right size.

[BarryW]

Now that would be pretty cool to see. Pretty sure that's what is in the Z already, multilayer pcb antenna.

[craigtyson]

Now that would be pretty cool to see.  Pretty sure that's what is in the Z already, multilayer pcb antenna.

Exhibit A: Click

Theres also a forun re yagi PCB WIFI arials and some rather unique designs/solutions Here

[zipmaster]

damn i wish i had the guts to do this. nice mod tho man, very nice