Use 2dBi Rubber Antenna for Blutooth?

Please include the following information, in order for us to help you as effectively as possible.

  • What product do you wish to discuss? RAK4631 & RAK19003

Total antenna noob here: I’m planning to set up 4 self-sufficient Meshtastic Routers on high buildings in our town (80 - 100m). For that I bought 4 Meshtastic starter kits (RAK19003 & RAK 4631) that include the 2dBi rubber antenna. Since I wanted to use the 5dBi outdoor antenna for LoRa as a replacement (and the routers are mounted way up high) I was wondering, if I could boost the Bluetooth reception by using the left over 2dBi rubber antenna on the Bluetooth connector? If that would be a viable way, should I mount the antenna on the side (circular radiation) or underneath (pointing downwards)? And does anyone have experience with e.g. some nice skyscraper owner, who allows the router on his tech deck way up high, but with no access, so maintenance would take part from the street level (hence the need of a looong bluetooth connection)? Or are there better solutions to that specific case?

Thanks for your help!

The 2dBi rubber antenna is tuned for 800-960Mhz.
Bluetooth is 2.4GHz.

You will not get good results (or none) with the rubber antenna used with Bluetooth.

Possible solution could be an antenna like the 2dBi Gain WiFi Antenna, but I still doubt that you can reach 100m through the building.

Thanks for the tip! Since the router will be visible from the ground floor (unobstructed line of sight), would it be possible to bridge 80 - 100 meters? The antenna should probably be mounted on the side, rectangular to my position on the street, correct?

I doubt that you can get 100m with BLE, but you can try to adjust the BLE TX power. How to do that depends on the firmware you are using.

For the antenna, general rules are

  • orientation might not change anything, but I have not tried different options
  • keep it away from the Base Board, battery, connectors, solar panel and any other object containing metal as far as possible.

Which cable would I need to connect the RAKARW01 antenna and the RAK4631? Would the SKU:920036 cable be the right one? Just from the images it doesn’t seem to be compatible…

The 2.4Ghz antenna RAKARW01 has a N-type male connector and is for gateways (as WiFi antenna).
The iPEX to N-Type LoRa/LTE Antenna Connector would be a match, it has a N-Type female connector.

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.