miniVNA PRO Bluetooth mod

30 Oct 2013 by sm0w, No Comments »

This summer I bought a new miniVNA PRO for making various antenna measurements. I already had the old original miniVNA but it was bugging me I could not do a real OSL calibration to null out the measuring cables and also I was curious to use the Bluetooth functions since struggeling with 1/2 wave measuring cables is  a big mess sometimes.. easier to just put the miniVNA in the feedpoint and measure via Bluetooth on the ground. However, my first trials was very dissapointing. When I put the antenna at 20m height it was no longer possible to measure with my laptop, it worked with an external bluetooth dongle wich obviously had better RX/TX thanthe built in module in the laptop.. However this bugged me for a few weeks until I opened the miniVNA PRO last night to look inside, found the tiniest of tiny chip antenna and decided that I will put a bigger antenna on the device.. which I did last night and my first tests today show I can measure at a distance of at least 100m when there is line of sight!

This is what I did basically. 1.) Located the tiny chip antenna, soldered it away 2.) Found an old wifi AP and took the antenna and internal coaxial from it. 3.) Soldered it straigt to the Bluetooth chip 4.) Enjoy!

Here are some step-by-step pics.

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OJØR Market Reef

OJØR Market Reef

OJØR is my callsign during visits to the barren rock of Market Reef in the middle of the Baltic sea. [&hellip