Matching impedance on 900 MHz Yagi stacking harness
I have posted on here before and found the member's comments very
helpful so here it goes again.
I am trying to stack two Yagi antennas to form a ground station to
receive GPS data from an experimental rocket. The rocket portion of
the system has already been tested but now I have two antennas to
couple together to make up the receiving end. The particulars are as
follows:
I have two 11 db 900 MHz Yagis (Pacific Wireless), both of which have
50 ohm pigtails. I am trying to hook these together in a cross
polarized fashion and need to insert two 75 ohm impedance matching
cables so that I end up with 50 ohms at the cable end attached to the
input of my receiver. Basically, there will be the two antennas,
matching sections, a tee connector, then the single coax going to the
receiver.
I figure that 75 ohm RG-11 coax should work for this purpose and am
trying to calculate the correct length of these impedance matching
sections. One formula I have found online is as follows:
Length (feet) = 246 * VF / Frequency (MHz)
The transmitter sends RF via Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum from
910 to 918 MHz; consequently, I am using 914 MHz as a baseline.
When I plug in the numbers, I get a length of about 2.1" for the
length of the 75 ohm matching sections. Needless to say, it will be
difficult if not impossible to do a 2.1" length of RG-11 cable with
two connectors. I have considered basically fabricating a "tee"
section out of two short lengths of the 75 ohm coax and RG-8 going to
the receiver (soldering the whole thing together), then connecting the
two Yagi antennas to that.
I suppose my question is this: Is there a longer multiple of
wavelength I can use for the impedance matching 75 ohm sections to
develop a more practical design for what I need? Or, am I stuck with
the 2.1" length due to the frequency?
Thanks,
Curt Newport
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