26 February 2013

A container for 23cm biquad antenna

There is a bit of local activity on 23cm and the RTLSDR dongle allows me to receive that HAM band. An improvised indoor dipole brought in few interesting signals, increasing my interest for 1296 MHz. I have already built a biquad antenna, which needs a (cheap!) housing before being installed outside.

My biquad size is about 20x30x6 cm and I have had troubles locating suitable plastic containers in the kitchen department of local supermarkets.

During a visit to IKEA lower floor I spotted the SAMLA series of plastic transparent containers. The 11 litres one is large enough to host my biquad (38x28x14 cm) and it costs 1+1.75 = 2.75€ (lid+box).

The antenna will go on the internal side of the cover, which is easier to work on and cheaper in case the experiment fails. In that case the SAMLA container will be repurposed in the house.