Engineer Designs Yagi Antenna for 915MHz LoRa to Enhance Radio Communication

Improving Radio Communication with the Yagi Antenna

If you are a regular reader of Hackaday, you have likely noticed a preference for Meshtastic devices and, generally, for the LoRa protocol. LoRa is a low-power radio communication standard, but sometimes the antennas included with the modules can be lacking.

That’s why Chris Prioli from the Gloucester County Amateur Radio Club in New Jersey designed a Yagi antenna for the North American 915 MHz LoRa band. His article is related to another project where a different user built a Yagi antenna for the 868 MHz band in Europe. Similar to that case, the radio club found that Chris's antenna offers significantly better reception than the standard antenna included with the LoRa module. Looking out the window, a club member who had two Meshtastic nodes with the standard antenna can now connect to two hundred nodes.

A radiation pattern simulation model clearly shows the efficiency of the Yagi antenna. This design is directional, meaning that the reception gain is better along the axis of the antenna, with simulations estimating a gain of 7.7 dB compared to a gain of under 3 dB for an omnidirectional antenna. Not bad, considering it involves simple 3D printing and a few stiff wires!

If you don’t want to reinvent the wheel, you can check out the GCARC GitHub for the necessary files if you are in North America. If you are in Europe, you can look into the construction completed by the other user last year. Of course, regardless of the band you operate in, the Yagi antenna is not the only DIY option for LoRa antennas.