BLE Pioneer Kit external antenna

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brandiware
Level 4
Level 4
First like given 25 sign-ins 5 solutions authored

Hi all,

I am still looking to extend the radio range of the nifty Pioneer Kit.

Has anyone succeeded in attaching an external amp/antenna to the U.FL connector on the kit ?

Thanks for any feedback

Stefan

1 Solution
GuhapriyanT_31
Employee
Employee
10 solutions authored 25 replies posted 10 replies posted

Hi Stefan,

I think the question is for the PSoC 6 BLE Pioneer Kit (CY8CKIT-062-BLE). We have used the U.FL connector for performing conducted measurements. But you could certainly connect an external Antenna to the U.FL connector to improve the Antenna performance. Please note that you may need to flip some components to redirect the signal from the radio to come on the external Antenna.

1. depopulate L1 and put it on L2,

2. depopulate C1 and put it on C4 (ignore this step if C1 is not populated on your board).

Thanks,

Guha

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6 Replies
GuhapriyanT_31
Employee
Employee
10 solutions authored 25 replies posted 10 replies posted

Hi Stefan,

I think the question is for the PSoC 6 BLE Pioneer Kit (CY8CKIT-062-BLE). We have used the U.FL connector for performing conducted measurements. But you could certainly connect an external Antenna to the U.FL connector to improve the Antenna performance. Please note that you may need to flip some components to redirect the signal from the radio to come on the external Antenna.

1. depopulate L1 and put it on L2,

2. depopulate C1 and put it on C4 (ignore this step if C1 is not populated on your board).

Thanks,

Guha

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Hi guha,

thanks for your help on this. Do you have an idea about the specs for such an antenna ?
Maybe you could find out about the amp used on the kit. From there we could derive the antenna specs.

Thanks

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GuhapriyanT_31
Employee
Employee
10 solutions authored 25 replies posted 10 replies posted

Hi Stefan,

You can either use one of the Antennas that comes with U.FL connector or have an U-FL to SMA adapter cable/connector and use any standard SMA Antenna. I would recommend using an antenna with good efficiency and standard gain for the Antenna type chosen.

Link for U.FL Antennas

Link for SMA Antennas

Thanks,

Guha

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Hello Guha, I connected an external antenna with a gain of 6dB (DELOCK 86253) according to your instructions. Somehow I cannot see a significant improvement of signal strength. In the component BLE 5.0 GAP settings I changed the TX/RX power to 4dBm. Anything else I can do to

get the desired performance boost ?

Thanks for your help

Stefan

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Hi Stefan,

The Antenna you have chosen has a peak gain of 2 dBi only (as per datasheet in this link), which is about the same as what we have on our board. This could be the reason for not seeing a big difference. Using an antenna with high efficiency (or high average gain instead of peak gain) may provide an improvement (to the extent of difference in the antenna gain only). You can use high gain antenna to see a significant improvement, but only if your the product is fixed and the communication is point to point.

Thanks,

Guha

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Thanks Guha, this makes sense in fact the range with this antenna is pretty much the same as with the on-board one. I will check to see if there are better antenna around.

Cheers

Stefan

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