Tutorial Build your own Yagi Antenna - Printable Version +- Sinisterly (https://sinister.ly) +-- Forum: Design (https://sinister.ly/Forum-Design) +--- Forum: Tutorials (https://sinister.ly/Forum-Tutorials--78) +--- Thread: Tutorial Build your own Yagi Antenna (/Thread-Tutorial-Build-your-own-Yagi-Antenna)

Build your own Yagi Antenna - Ecks - 05-25-2017 This is a great directional antenna that can be used for any kind of signal from TV,HAM to even WiFi. WiFi is what I will be focusing on in this tutorial but I will post one from Makezine for anyone interested in other frequencies. So what will you need. Well for the most part just some large paper clips, popsicle sticks(or tongue depressers) and a usb wifi dongle. (you will also want a way to snip the paperclips, some glue and some rubber bands) Oh and this handy guide. Now you might be thinking this is all very complicated but I assure you this is a very simple design that yields very good results (you can get even better results from using different materials, but I will leave that for you to decide) So let me explain the image above(and a link to download the image at full resolution so you can print to scale). Use a ruler or caliper to measure if the print is of correct scale. You will notice vertical bars crossing the horizontal line. The vertical bars represent the Yagi "elements" which will be made from paperclips. The horizontal line is the backbone of the antenna which will be build out of popsicle sticks. You will also notice numbers next to the elements. These numbers are in pairs. The first number is the length of the element in millimeters. The second number, is the distance from the start of the diagram to the element, in millimeters. Now you will need to first start by clipping the flat side of the paperclips to scale then glue them(dont super glue them) to the paper except for the green line, that is our wifi bandwidth and it gets some special treatment. Now you will have to open the last paperclip and glue it in place, trimming it comes later, just as before glue the flat side to the paper with each end sticking up. Now for the backbone, just glue the popsicle sticks to together and to the paperclips (you can trim them and make them all seamless if your picky) and now to let everything dry for a bit. Next we can trim off our paper and make another backbone to glue to the other side adding some rigidness and dexterity(hot glue will work). And for the last step you will need to take your wifi usb and remove it from its plastic case exposing the board and wifi card, on the card you will see two points this is where that unclipped paperclips ends will be bent to. Carefully bend them down and clip off any excess (note that the ends of the paperclip can NOT touch). Now we will need to solder(not much but this part can be a pain in the ass depending on what kind of usb you have). The basic idea is that you need to solder a wire between the WiFi board's RF output and the driven element(the paperclip) of the yagi antenna. But USB WiFi modems come either with an internal antenna or with an external antenna. Those with external antennae, are easier to connect because you are just replacing the external whip antenna with the Yagi. Those with internal antenna may need to have their on-board strip antenna modified. You need to slightly experiment in this case. Examples for internal antenna modification. Now that we have a pretty soild antenna we can now run a usb extension cord from the usb end of our wifi card to our computer(or router if you read my last tutorial). Now you should end up with something like this. Oh and one last thing, this is not for outside use, there are better materials you can use for outside use that wont be completely destroyed by the first storm to hit. I hope you guys enjoy trying this out and I gotta give mad props to the ARRL. And now a better written tut by an ARRL member. http://makezine.com/projects/make-24/homemade-yagi-antenna/