Different antenna for MB Pro Red with Davis stations

[WS Heinenoord]

On several fora one can read the direct reception of Davis stations using the MB Pro Red is not as good as the Davis console or the Envoy's are doing.
My Pro Red is no exception, signals from the ISS and 3 more stations at 20 to 30 meters frequently go down to -95 dB, while there's only a half-brick wall in between. Realizing the standard Pro Red antenna's are short, I ordered a 17 cm long 868 - 915 MHz Antenna, claiming 5dbi. meaning antenna length is now 4x the original. The MB Wiki Tutorial for the Pro Red is telling not to expect much from such change.
Attached are three plots showing the impact of the antenna change at 11:02 h.

ISS signal.PNG (44.67 KiB) Viewed 658 times

TH2 signal.PNG (43.21 KiB) Viewed 658 times

LS10-50 signal.PNG (51.57 KiB) Viewed 658 times

So far the effects are obvious, the reception appears much more stable, with less drops to -95 dB. Remarkably we see a clear improvement for the ISS which is at largest distance while a nearby Leaf/Soil station (nr 50) is not changing that much.

I also ran into WIFI connection issues one day, with the Pro reporting it had difficulties to connect. Here I changed the WIFI antenna to a double length one from a PC WIFI card. Also better dB numbers now, but not documented. This was done together with changing WIFI channel, so no clear antenna impact.

So far so good or it must be the weather is changing

[ConligWX]

That's a good result for you!

[admin]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing these findings!