Show description

Now that you know the secret, you’re not an average consumer. Building a Coaxial Cable That’s enough theory! Now it’s time to get your hands dirty and get started on this chapter’s project, which is building a coax antenna cable. Cable construction opens new freedom to creating wireless projects. With this skill, you can order the components you need and custom-build a cable that fits your application perfectly. And the cost of the components is usually lower than buying a pre-built cable. N-Male is the most commonly used connector for Wi-Fi cabling, because most antennas have N-Female connectors.

These waves are just like radio waves, except at a very low frequency of perhaps 10 waves per second, which are called cycles per second or hertz. Now imagine a cross-section of those waves. Perhaps the rock was dropped in a fish tank and the waves are visible from the side. The wave would look similar to that shown in Figure 1-1. The electromagnetic spectrum spans frequencies from subaudible sound of 1 hertz all the way through radio and visible light to beyond X-rays and cosmic rays at a frequency of 10 followed by 5 6 Part I — Building Antennas FIGURE 1-1: Waves viewed from the side.

Vertical Driven Array Antenna The driven array antenna is often used for mobile applications. This is a vertical antenna with gain created by multiple segments of half-wavelength elements arranged vertically end-to-end to achieve gain. An array is simply more than one element working together. The driven array means that each element has an electrical connection with the one next to it. The signal is driven into each radiating element via an antenna coil that maximizes the transfer of energy between adjacent elements.