You have to remember that a rubber duck antenna relies upon its host handy talkie to provide a counterpoise. The rubber duck will get a very small counterpoise from the nanoVNA but not like what its original handy talkie would have provided. Measuring the performance of a rubber duck antenna in this way transforms it into the equivalent of an end fed dipole antenna since it has no counterpoise. This accounts for almost no gain at the primary frequency but a respectable gain at the second harmonic since at the second harmonic the electrical length of that rubber duck is a half wavelength. What do you can do for a valid test is attach a wire that is at least 19 inches long between the rubber duck and the nano VNA which could then serve as a counterpoise. This is a mistake which is easy to do. I made the same mistake myself last year.
Nicely done video ! Glad to see the direct S11 logmag plots being used rather than switching to the older SWR formatting. I hope the NanoVNA helps people move away from SWR and embrace reflection coefficient (i.e. S11) more.
Despite the Troll comments of others , the NanoVNA is an excellent tool for a quick look/see. Thank you for explaining., I also have the NanoVNA for making quick readings so I don't have to bring out more serious diagnostic gear.
Thas weird. This is the first heads up to the orig. Baofeng Antennas. In most test videos its said throw it out and get a signal stick or a Nagoya NA771. But there are lots of fake Nagoyas and signal sticks on the market! They mostly work much poorer and are not really matched.
@@rilosvideos877 They are chit he doesnt know what hes talking about. For tuned handheld antennas their's also smiley antenna. Can get different bands and designs! Just need to know which frequency you want to order. I ordered a 5/8 slim duck for railroad. The performance is the best Ive ever seen for a handheld.
I don't have that type of connector. I'm new so my terminology may be off. I have a coax (male) that connects to my rubber ducky that I think is female. Is this okay to connect to the antenna and Nano?
Hello! When you travel across the swr curve with the left and right keys… is it to adjust the steps? For instance, i find that mine goes from 7050 to 7150 or so… Thank you
I did HT antennas test recently and found the stock antennas that come with the ID-51 and FT-8DR are bummers. While Diamond 771 outperforms everyone, the Baofeng stock performs nicely.
Will you do a part 2 to this video that focuses on some of the test leads you’ve made for RF applications? I’ve noticed in a few videos that the grabbers are connected to each pole of a coaxial cable. Then maybe revisit calibration techniques to zero the test leads out of the measurements. Thanks, as always, for the videos!
Based on the video shots, I'm pretty sure the detuning was caused by the antenna lying close to the wood. Wood has a relative permittivity > 1 and slows down propagation velocity, which increases the antenna's electrical length and lowers the resonant frequency. It is incidental that one case is horz and the other vertical . If in free-space, there is no defined orientation. So once you pick it up (an approximation of free-space), it doesn't make any significant difference - unless the antenna gets close to your body or some other object - or the antenna uses your body as a counterpoise - which one of his experiments ruled out.
Thanks for your practical tutorials. What NANOVNA do you recommend, for overall use 50khz-900mhz or 1.5ghz in metal case $180 or less? Seems there are a lot of knock off. Thanks you again.
I bought a NanoVNA-F from Amazon and love it. About $140. Has the newer Deepelec dot com hardware, a metal case, and new firmware that allows extension to 10 kHz to 1.5 GHz if I ever need it. Default setting is 50 kHz to 1 GHz. Works perfect. Amazing instrument !
Noob question: My screen is crazy right out of the box, could 10 cell tower antennas on this building's roof and another 10 across the street have anything to do with it? This nanoVNA has a plastic case, aluminum foil does not help so far. Would sheet Mu metal help?
Thanks for showing your video it would be nice also to see how are you set your VNA up to make such a clear and clean picture mine either has something wrong with it It looks nothing like this.
Unless you use the devices laying flat on what ever sort of surface you should keep the radiating element away from all other objects to get a reasonable idea of the true tuning. It's pure luck that you're not seeing major differences with some of these 😁
If it didn't matter then people like me wouldn't spend countless hours ensuring that the antennas in our products worked correctly inside the gadget and not just in free space 😉
@@IMSAIGuy Yeah it's not the nanovna, it's just hard to measure those sort of antennae because results will vary greatly depending on deployment. I see the same thing on my RS VNA.
I took the plunge. I bought one. No instructions. Could you do a video for me and others that have no idea what buttons to push to get the display you are showing in this video. Thanks Dave.
I have a antenna like the last one, the long skinny one with a small base. IIRC I bought it around Y2K for a Standard C508A wide band. I don't remember who made it and there are no marking to go by. I have a NanoVNA-F v3.1 coming soon and it will be interesting to see if my results match yours.
Whoa! No way, so you're telling me that the standard rubber duck Baofeng antenna works better than the Nagoya whip NA 771 antenna! That's revolutionary to me. I've always heard the longer antennas are better
Longer antennas will generally have broader bandwidth - but short ones can work fine if they are well-tuned - which is up to the manufacturing and their interplay with the body of the HT which acts as the monopole antenna's 'counterpoise' (other side of the pseudo-dipole EM field formation). Short antennas can have a bit less efficiency, but that's not noticeable in the radio-comm link-budget 99.99% of the time, unless you're right at the extreme end of the maximum range for the comm-link.
Just because an antenna has "perfect" vswr doesn't mean it radiates as well as another with higher vswr. Otherwise all we would need is a dummy load and be in business. A dummy load with perfect vswr won't get you very far :). It would be nice to have included some field strength tests ...but maybe that's the subject of another video ...
It would have been more informative if you had demonstrated how to set up the VNA. As it is the video in my opinion is useless. Anyone can screw an antenna into a radio.
You have to remember that a rubber duck antenna relies upon its host handy talkie to provide a counterpoise. The rubber duck will get a very small counterpoise from the nanoVNA but not like what its original handy talkie would have provided. Measuring the performance of a rubber duck antenna in this way transforms it into the equivalent of an end fed dipole antenna since it has no counterpoise. This accounts for almost no gain at the primary frequency but a respectable gain at the second harmonic since at the second harmonic the electrical length of that rubber duck is a half wavelength. What do you can do for a valid test is attach a wire that is at least 19 inches long between the rubber duck and the nano VNA which could then serve as a counterpoise. This is a mistake which is easy to do. I made the same mistake myself last year.
Great advice
I heard this counter argument to the Baofeng spurious emissions as well... how true is that?
Nicely done video ! Glad to see the direct S11 logmag plots being used rather than switching to the older SWR formatting. I hope the NanoVNA helps people move away from SWR and embrace reflection coefficient (i.e. S11) more.
Despite the Troll comments of others , the NanoVNA is an excellent tool for a quick look/see. Thank you for explaining., I also have the NanoVNA for making quick readings so I don't have to bring out more serious diagnostic gear.
I'd say the difference in the trace by orientation is not because it's vertical or horizontal but more to do with the proximity of the bench.
The baofeng antenna is a work of art! They really know what they're doing.
I have an older version of the antenna that looks chubby, but even performs better.
Thas weird. This is the first heads up to the orig. Baofeng Antennas. In most test videos its said throw it out and get a signal stick or a Nagoya NA771. But there are lots of fake Nagoyas and signal sticks on the market! They mostly work much poorer and are not really matched.
@@rilosvideos877 They are chit he doesnt know what hes talking about. For tuned handheld antennas their's also smiley antenna. Can get different bands and designs! Just need to know which frequency you want to order. I ordered a 5/8 slim duck for railroad. The performance is the best Ive ever seen for a handheld.
7:30 doesn't the SMA adapter affect the reading?
yes it effects the phase delay at higher frequencies but not SWR
I don't have that type of connector. I'm new so my terminology may be off. I have a coax (male) that connects to my rubber ducky that I think is female. Is this okay to connect to the antenna and Nano?
I was impressed with baofeng antenna..... didn't expect the readings.
It's not so much the orientation as the capacitance between the antenna and table top that's detuning the antennas.
Yes, I think you are the first to give the real answer
thank you for testing all my stock of antennas :D - It happens I have them all & you did a custom test - wonderful
Hello! When you travel across the swr curve with the left and right keys… is it to adjust the steps? For instance, i find that mine goes from 7050 to 7150 or so…
Thank you
I did HT antennas test recently and found the stock antennas that come with the ID-51 and FT-8DR are bummers. While Diamond 771 outperforms everyone, the Baofeng stock performs nicely.
Will you do a part 2 to this video that focuses on some of the test leads you’ve made for RF applications? I’ve noticed in a few videos that the grabbers are connected to each pole of a coaxial cable. Then maybe revisit calibration techniques to zero the test leads out of the measurements. Thanks, as always, for the videos!
th-cam.com/video/s82P5btDfeU/w-d-xo.html
Thx....Great informative video perfectly explained for most New users like Me !! Plz keep these & Tiny Sa videos coming !! thanks again,.....tom
4:00 impressive Baofeng antenna results! 👍 too bad the radios have spurious emissions 😩🤨
no one cares, except for sad hammers, I guess you're one of them
I notice that you omitted recalibration when you added the male/ female converter or did you just edit that out?
1:52 Seriously? OFCOURSE!!! Always keep those type of antennas oriented vertical when measuring!!!
Based on the video shots, I'm pretty sure the detuning was caused by the antenna lying close to the wood. Wood has a relative permittivity > 1 and slows down propagation velocity, which increases the antenna's electrical length and lowers the resonant frequency. It is incidental that one case is horz and the other vertical . If in free-space, there is no defined orientation. So once you pick it up (an approximation of free-space), it doesn't make any significant difference - unless the antenna gets close to your body or some other object - or the antenna uses your body as a counterpoise - which one of his experiments ruled out.
Thanks for your practical tutorials. What NANOVNA do you recommend, for overall use 50khz-900mhz or 1.5ghz in metal case $180 or less? Seems there are a lot of knock off. Thanks you again.
I'm cheap, so the cheap one seems fine
I bought a NanoVNA-F from Amazon and love it. About $140. Has the newer Deepelec dot com hardware, a metal case, and new firmware that allows extension to 10 kHz to 1.5 GHz if I ever need it. Default setting is 50 kHz to 1 GHz. Works perfect. Amazing instrument !
Is this with the Antenna Analyser version of the Firmware(__aa) in your nanoVNA..??
I ask because there is no Smith Chart showing.
no, I never loaded the AA firmware. In the menus you have the ablity to turn of and off the four displays. I just turned off the smith chart display
@@IMSAIGuy O.K... Thanks..
I have not found any info on the "aa" version compared to standard.
Noob question: My screen is crazy right out of the box, could 10 cell tower antennas on this building's roof and another 10 across the street have anything to do with it? This nanoVNA has a plastic case, aluminum foil does not help so far. Would sheet Mu metal help?
this device is strange, try to do what I show and see if you get a reasonable result.
th-cam.com/video/QJYeFpiqY8c/w-d-xo.html
@@IMSAIGuy TY! I'll give it a try!
Do you need to recal ahen you add the adapter?
it depends on what you are trying to measure. SWR is a scalar measurement and has no phase information, so no cal needed
Thank you, nicely done.
Thanks for showing your video it would be nice also to see how are you set your VNA up to make such a clear and clean picture mine either has something wrong with it It looks nothing like this.
that is how mine was out of the box
He has gone into the menu for display and removed many of the traces, leaving just one and switching it to swr.
I realize this is several years old, so not expecting a reply. Can you actually see on the screen what exact frequency the dip is?
Yes. you can move the marker to it. Most of his anteannas at 440 were actually off tuned to either 430 or 450
wow a lot ofthose antennas were mis tuned. the 440 looked more for 430 and 460 on most of them.
First heads up for the Baofeng Antenna i hear of 🙄
Unless you use the devices laying flat on what ever sort of surface you should keep the radiating element away from all other objects to get a reasonable idea of the true tuning. It's pure luck that you're not seeing major differences with some of these 😁
If it didn't matter then people like me wouldn't spend countless hours ensuring that the antennas in our products worked correctly inside the gadget and not just in free space 😉
fair enough. I had problems trying to measure ducks on a $100,000 analyser too
@@IMSAIGuy Yeah it's not the nanovna, it's just hard to measure those sort of antennae because results will vary greatly depending on deployment. I see the same thing on my RS VNA.
I took the plunge. I bought one. No instructions. Could you do a video for me and others that have no idea what buttons to push to get the display you are showing in this video. Thanks Dave.
@@n2kto instuction manual can be found drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-JViWLBOIzaHTdwdONX2RP8S4EgWxoND
With that adapter dont you need to change the calibration plane ,so many pico seconds
Could you show a video on how you configured the Nanovna?
th-cam.com/video/THc5ZTxQUSg/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/QJYeFpiqY8c/w-d-xo.html
sera que não tem como fazer ele suportar 2.4ghz ?
73 pu1phs
only 1GHz
Much better to sit it on a mount and then measure it you'll be surprised
th-cam.com/video/wem0DoPe5O0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=904DkjK9omqD7CdE
I have a antenna like the last one, the long skinny one with a small base. IIRC I bought it around Y2K for a Standard C508A wide band. I don't remember who made it and there are no marking to go by. I have a NanoVNA-F v3.1 coming soon and it will be interesting to see if my results match yours.
Whoa! No way, so you're telling me that the standard rubber duck Baofeng antenna works better than the Nagoya whip NA 771 antenna! That's revolutionary to me. I've always heard the longer antennas are better
?? Depends what length/what frequency ,doesn't it?
Not a genuine Nagoya.
The baofeng antenna is an excellent antenna.
Longer antennas will generally have broader bandwidth - but short ones can work fine if they are well-tuned - which is up to the manufacturing and their interplay with the body of the HT which acts as the monopole antenna's 'counterpoise' (other side of the pseudo-dipole EM field formation). Short antennas can have a bit less efficiency, but that's not noticeable in the radio-comm link-budget 99.99% of the time, unless you're right at the extreme end of the maximum range for the comm-link.
Just because an antenna has "perfect" vswr doesn't mean it radiates as well as another with higher vswr. Otherwise all we would need is a dummy load and be in business. A dummy load with perfect vswr won't get you very far :). It would be nice to have included some field strength tests ...but maybe that's the subject of another video ...
I love your videos but that is not a Yaesu radio from Japan. it is the cheapest of the cheap Chinese Baeofang!
The Yaesu antenna was off my VX-1 handheld. The other antenna was indeed off a Baofeng
If you pay attention you can hear he only called the antenna a Yeasu...............think/listen before reacting.
@@muppetpaster Troll, grow up.
"...the point is: look at the petty colors!"
...phfffft.
It would have been more informative if you had demonstrated how to set up the VNA. As it is the video in my opinion is useless. Anyone can screw an antenna into a radio.
check my playlist for NanoVNA, I have lots of videos on setups. it would have been redundant here.
Fake Nagoya, nagoya is white writing, not blue!!! My Nagoya works great!!