4. Antenna - Swarm-Technologies/Getting-Started GitHub Wiki

Q: Where can I find more information regarding the Swarm ¼-wave antenna?
A: More information regarding the Swarm ¼-wave antenna can be found in Section 6.2 of the Product Manual.

Q: Can I use a different antenna?
A: Swarm does not currently recommend the use of any other antenna except for the included Swarm ¼-wave antenna. Customers may choose to test with another antenna, but Swarm may not be able to support any use cases where a 3rd party antenna is used.

Q: How should the antenna be mounted?
A: The ideal mounting orientation for the antenna is vertically pointing upwards with a clear unobstructed view of the sky.

Q: What about ground planes for the Swarm ¼-wave antenna?
A: We recommend that all customers use an antenna ground plane wherever possible and we also have some general recommendations in the Modem's Product Manual. We generally recommend at least 30x30x0.3 cm for the ground plane since that is what we use on our eval kits and it has been tested extensively in a lot of different environments. Some customers choose to use a smaller ground plane due to design constraints, or to use a counterpoise instead. Some user applications use much smaller ground planes than the 30x30 cm successfully, but this varies based on the overall design, application, and installation location.

Q: Can I use a counterpoise instead?
A: Yes, you can use a 18" long 18AWG wire hanging straight down as a counterpoise.

Q: What cable do you recommend for extending the antenna connection?
A: We recommend using an LMR®-240-UF cable with the appropriate connectors for your application.