Low quality antenna on Z-Lite?

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atchoo
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2023 9:45 am
Location: Oslo, Norway
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Low quality antenna on Z-Lite?

Post by atchoo »

Hello,

I recently bought myself a Z-lite, after having Tellsticks (.net and Classic) for many years. At first I had problems pairing my devices, but I soon discovered that the difficulties came from a bad reception problem (between the self-learning devices and "The Mothership", which I by the way nicknamed it spontaneously :lol:

I just figured I´d do a little test, and I replaced the stock antenna that came with the Z-lite, with a spare antenna I had (I took it off a dead D-link router).

Lo and behold, not only was the problems eliminated, but I increased the range for the 433mhz signals by at least 25 meters (!). After I made that discovery, I did a little further testing, and swapped the D-link antenna with the one from my old Tellstick.net device - and it was practically glowing in technicolor compared to the Z-lite stock antenna (which was a bit odd since they look about the same, except for the white color instead of orange).

So correct me if I´m wrong, but my logical conclusion from this is that either:
a) I had bad luck and got a faulty antenna (possibly with a poor wiring/connection/soldering to the copper wire)
or
b) the Z-lite antenna is simply made of cheaper components, or there is some kind of signal priority specification?

My last question is, in true programmer fashion:
If B, is this intentional? Else: Any clues or info about this is appreciated (End if).

By the way (all programmer jokes and reception problems aside): The Z-lite looks promising, I´m looking forward to testing it :clap:

Best regards,

Andreas
etompau
Posts: 2405
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2023 9:45 am
Location: Skåne

Re: Low quality antenna on Z-Lite?

Post by etompau »

a) an electrical/mfg fault in the antenna could well be the case. The only way of knowing this is to take the antenna apart.
b) as far as I know, the antennas are exactly the same, expect for the colour.

An antennas is always a compromise of size and performance. There a lot of threads in the forum (Swedish section) on how to improve coverage with third party antennas.
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