Banana Pi BPI-R4 Wifi 7 BE14 - Pigtails and Antennas

So best to go for the other one I guess

As far as I know, and I may be wrong, both tri-band dipole antennas from Taoglas are good, but the “gain” of the older antenna is 3 dBi on most bands and the “gain” of the newer antenna is 5 dBi on most bands.

Information about antenna “gain”:

2 Likes

Cool thanks, the stock ones are horrible I can’t even get a signal upstairs in my house and if I do it’s running at 5mbps lol, compared to my router provided by isp that can do 300mbos in my weakest room

1 Like

I’m using these https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09V4YXMZN as I needed longer pigtails. They seem to work so far, but haven’t done any speedtests or analysis on the signal quality yet.

I’d like to share new data about the Antsym 5 GHz antennas that I’ve purchased as a replacement for the stock BPI ones. Now that I’ve done signal measurement (at 2.5 meters in direct line-of-sight) it looks like they’re not any better after all. I guess that does it for cheap antennas for me. I’ll try to get my hands on those rather expensive tri-band antennas from Taoglas and report back on how they perform.

band	brand		router signal	NIC signal/noise	
5ghz	sinovoip		-15			-38/-77
5ghz	antsym			-14			-39/-74

6ghz	sinovoip		-25			-39/-76
6ghz	antsym			-27			-43/-75
2 Likes

I think this is the correct way to place the WiFi and Cellular antennas on the BPI-R4 when you have a WiFi 7 module (BE14) and a 5G module (RM520N-GL) installed. It is recommended that the cable has the same length for all antennas on each radio, maybe 20 cm cables (IPEX-1) for all WiFi antennas (mentioned above) and 10 cm cables (IPEX-4) for the Cellular antennas:

Antenna Placement #1
--------------------
2/5g    6g
Leave this space between WiFi antennas or use it for cellular antennas
6g      5g
2/5g    6g

.

Antenna Placement #2
--------------------
2/5g    6g
Leave this space between WiFi antennas or use it for cellular antennas
6g      6g
2/5g    5g

.

Antenna Placement #3
--------------------
5g      6g
Leave this space between WiFi antennas or use it for cellular antennas
6g      6g
2/5g    2/5g

.

Antenna Placement #4
--------------------
       5g
6g           6g
Leave this space between WiFi antennas
Leave this space between WiFi antennas
2/5g        2/5g
       6g

Information about cable and antenna placement:

2 Likes

Btw if anyone reads this later, the 2nd one is available cheaper at digikey

1 Like

this is a great explanation on all this works & thank you however 6Ghz/EHT is not mentioned apart from the pics … any other points to make for 6GHz ?

1 Like

And how would you recommend to orient the antennas? Is there also a recommendation? (Eg one horizontal, one vertical, …)

1 Like

I purchased the antennas and will post here how they go

2 Likes

1. MiMo works equally on all radios/bands, which means that the above information about cable and antenna placement on the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios also applies to the 6 GHz radio.

  • As explained here:

2. The 6 GHz band has worse penetration through walls, objects, floors and ceilings than the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.

  • As explained here:

3. Behfor recommends using the bands in this way and makes a ping comparison between them:

Watch these videos, they show you where to place the wireless router in your home and the best antenna positions for the wireless router:

  1. Where to place the wireless router in your home.

  2. Optimal Positions for Your Router’s Antennas in a Single Story House.

  3. Best Antenna Positions for Wireless Router in a 2-Story House.

3 Likes

New Taoglas antenna with new rg178 cables

Old antenna with old cables

Both in direct line of sight 6ghz

Signal strength is also much better than previously, these antennas are really good, quite happy with the purchase

2 Likes

Now that’s pretty decent improvement. Would you mind posting the signal strength figures?

1 Like

Top of the staircase in my house

I’ll get 6Ghz up in a bit

Edit: 6ghz

1 Like

Very dramatic difference, thank you.

1 Like

Only issue is while the signal is stronger than my isp router i still cant get 5ghz in my weakest room while the ISP one can

1 Like

Which tools (Windows, Linux or Android app?) are you using to measure the signal quality?

I’m planning to put the antennas on the outside of the door of the cabinet (drilling some holes, but don’t tell anyone). Reading the above it sounds like the distribution of the antennas is important.

I was thinking about just placing all six of them in a line. • • • • • • Should I alternate the 2.4/5g and 6g in this case?

Another idea could be two lines. One of them for 2.4/5g and the other for 6g.

• • •
• • •

Or some funny circular options, though not sure if that makes sense.

 •  •
•    •
 •  •

Its wifiman from ubiquity

this is a great topic and must say one of the advice to flattening the antennas helped a lot with the reach of the phy2 radio … is there a feature to star this topic ?