My understanding with these panels is they're patch arrays over a ground plane. There was a pair of them with one broken radome that showed the underlying structure, but it looks like the eBay listing sold or expired. Some of them seem to implement dual, cross-polarity feeds, but a single polarity feed with higher gain would probably be better for us. Then it's just a matter of mounting the panel in the right position per the labeled polarization and port used since they're usually square.

6' booms sound effective, but I have neither the space nor plans for deployment capability for those. They'd also probably be difficult to carry around as I have limited ambitions for being able to play microwaves by SOTA rules (no engine-powered antennas/supports/power sources; human-portable station). Comparing the Directive Systems spec tables, it seems like some of the high-end panels reach the ballpark of the shorter beams. Obviously the beams work better for leaving strapped to the mobile than the profiles of the panels (16x16" or so)!

Do you have a reference for your mesh dish? If they're available cheap, that's quite handy. 27 dBi would be higher than the panels. I haven't seen those so far also going after some dishes in my searching. Of course, the best deals on dishes require being at the right hamfest at the right time. And I only have so much space for spares in my aspiration not to become an imminent source of cheap stuff at the next hamfest.

Now for continuing to figure what it takes to get this first little SDR working!

Hi Thomas. I suppose like most answers, it depends.

I am not overly familiar with panel antennas, so take this all with a grain of salt. We are usually using horizontally polarized on these bands and I'm not sure what panel antennas are or if they are "flippable". For portable work, most rovers are using loop antennas like those from Directive Systems https://directivesystems.com/ . Loop antennas generally cover the bands from 902 to 3400. Myself, when roving, I have had good luck using Directive System 6' boom loopers. For my home station I also use loop antennas on these bands but with longer booms.

For 5.7 I use a 27 dB wire mesh commercial dish .... you can find these all over the place online. One advantage is that they come with a feed and they are lightweight and low wind resistance (important sometimes when roving !).

For 10GHz I've been using a re-purposed 24" dish with a home made horn feed.

So overall, an advantage of a dish at this frequencies is that, in theory, you could use one dish and change out the feeds, or for some bands have a dual band feed. Getting gain at 2.4 GHz does requires a bigger dish, something that could be challenging to handle when portable and dealing with weather; that's why loopers are pretty nice for that application.

Hope this was helpful. Others may have some comment as well.

73, Jon

W0ZQ

On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 10:36:33 PM CDT, Thomas Murphy <[email protected]> wrote:

As an aspiring microwaver who will be fully committed to the portable

life for the foreseeable future, how are panel antennas for the

mid-microwave bands? Between WiFi/ISM and CBRS allocations, I've seen

eBay listings for 2.4/3.4/5.8 GHz panel antennas between 10 and 23-ish

dBi. Is their simplicity worth it in comparison to acquiring and tuning

a/multiple dish(es) for getting started?

- Thomas / WN1C

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