The toughest antennas in town

Demanding situations need products that won’t let you down, products that will take whatever life throws at them.

For wirelessly connected industrial applications, such as vehicle tracking, the antenna often needs to be even more rugged than the equipment it is connected to. Whilst the end equipment can often be protected or even hidden from view, the antenna represents a significant failure point which needs to be well positioned, often at odds with the need to secure the antenna.

Enter the Tango family of compact antennas from wireless specialist Siretta, each and everyone with secure through-hole mounting and seriously tough exteriors. Easily mounted to panels and casings, the Tango antennas are ideal where an unobtrusive solution is required, and options for environmental protection and vandal resistance ensure it will take care of itself.

Siretta’s Tango range offers a variety of options to fit purpose for many of today’s RF applications that require a more rugged solution, including; automotive, meter reading, tracking, transport network, outdoor M2M and others within relatively demanding environments.

Within the Tango range, there are a host of different styles and designs to choose from: puck types, shark-fins, low profiles, high gain whips as well as a variety of IP rated and vandal proof antennas. The Tango 14 and 15 antennas offer the low profile options which serve both anti-vandal and covert applications, whilst the Tango 11A & 17 antennas are the ‘rock-hard’, IP67 rated, destruction proof antennas with solid PVC housing, large screw thread studs and ‘round-the-edge’ gaskets. The Tango 19, 20 and 21 are the extremely compact antennas with their small footprint size.

Tango products support all the main frequency bands, including; quad band GSM/GPRS, 3G, WiFi, GPS and GLONASS and also comprise the space saving two and three way combination products, with GSM/GPS and GSM/GPS/WiFi in a single package.

Find out more about the Tango range

(This post first appeared on the Siretta Pulse blog on 1st August 2016 and is reproduced with kind permission)

There are more connectors than answers

Try as she might, Rapid product manager Janice Ratcliffe just couldn't come up with an R.E.M. connection for this post. Neither could her editor. It's not the end of the world as we know it, but choosing a connector certainly isn't easy either. 

With thousands of connectors on the market to select from it may seem at first that we are spoilt for choice, but that can just make it harder to choose. However, with all of them having advantages and disadvantages over each other, it’s the application/product which helps narrow down the options. Whatever the application the connectors will play an important role and need to be considered in any design and development work.

So how do we choose? Of course, they must be able to function electrically – Amps, Volts, shielded etc ... But what about size? Where is it going to be mounted? What is it connecting? Does it need to be connected and disconnected? How is it going to be mounted? What about IP and ATEX? Is it going to be seen? What about approvals?

As we answer these questions the type narrows until the choice is more manageable and cost may then come into the equation when comparing like products from different manufacturers. However, don’t think that because it is good value and an own brand it is not a quality product. In some cases, the products might well be used in some very well-known brand-named goods, but we are just not allowed to mention it.

Yes, pitches can be confusing

Oh! and don’t forget the American and European measurements. Have you seen the pitches, 5.08mm or 5.0mm for example, that has come about from conversions from inches? Another is right angled D-type connectors where the distance from the first row of pins to the PCB edge has two different standards; US 8.08mm and European 10.4mm, once again two different dimensions to catch you out. 

And if you think that’s all over what about wire gauges – AWG or mm²?

If you have any questions about connectors you can always drop me a line or make a comment below and I will get back to you. 

What's the frequency, Janice?

In the first of a new series of byte-sized blogs, Rapid product manager  (and R.E.M. fan) Janice Ratcliffe (right) shares a fascinating fact or two from the ever mindblowing world of electronics.

 

This week: Radio frequency 

 

If the earth was flat, as some people still insist, it would make higher radio frequency communication a lot less complicated.

Waves could be transmitted and received in a straight line, without the problems created by that pesky curvature of the Earth, which effectively creates a ‘dead zone’ past a certain point meaning some waves go drifting off into the atmosphere. This is called ‘the radio horizon’ and that is why radio antennas have to be located at certain distances to keep signals on the straight and narrow.

The line of sight to the horizon depends on how high up you are and the height of what you are looking at. If you are a person 2 metres tall standing on a beach you can see 5.1 kilometres whereas a radio mast 20 metres high that you can see dotted around – even the crazy ones that are made to look like trees – will be able to talk to another of 20 metres with aerials on top. If you were at the top of one you could see the other from about 30 kilometres apart. 

Depending on the frequency some waves can be reflected and refracted, pass through walls, and others can bounce off the atmosphere just to complicate it. Those of a certain generation will be able to remember pirate radio that sounded better at night due to the change in the atmospheric layer the radio signals bounced off.

What frequency to use? It just depends!

Take a look at the Rapid website for a wide range of RF and wireless products. 

Five brilliant Bare Conductive projects you may have missed

All in all it's just another conductive brick in the wall.

Things happen so quickly in the world of Bare Conductive that there are some projects you may have missed. Or you could be new to electric paint altogether and would like an idea of what can be achieved with the product patented by four graduates of the London College of Art and Imperial College in 2009. Some of these projects are on an epic scale and involve teams of professional designers and interactive artists; but the beauty of Bare Conductive is that anyone can start using it for simple applications.

1. Wall of Sound 

German design agency Fischer Appelt turned a blank wall in their offices into a fully interactive audio experience, using Bare Conductive paint and the Touch Board. The ridiculously talented team painted retro ghetto blasters, amplifiers, speakers and reel to reel tape recorders with electric paint, with sensors painted into the wall to correspond, for example, with play, stop and volume control buttons. A Touch Board on the reverse side of the wall was programmed with the team's music selections and playlists.

2. Staircase alarm

This is a classic beginner project, either just for fun, pet surveillance or genuine home security. There is no need to paint directly onto your staircase - use masking tape or another self-adhesive backing on which to apply the conductive paint. Attach a speaker or buzzer to your Touch Board, program the Touch Board with the sound you want to be played, and apply a line of paint to connect the Touch Board with the staircase sensor strip. 

3. The wall that comes alive 

Branding and design agency Dalziel and Pow produced this interactive touch wall for a retail exhibition, to show how sensor-based technology could be used to create audio visual experiences more in common with freeform animation than traditional touchscreen technology. 

4. MIDI Piano

Another Bare Conductive classic. You can use a template to draw the keys of your piano onto card weighing at least 200gsm. The Touch Board will need to be set up in 'On Board Midi Mode' so that the sound of the piano notes can be played.  

5. Liquidity Lamp

In this project, industrial product designer Jose Maria Riesco used electric paint, diluted with baby oil, as a sensor to switch on a 220V bulb. The paint mixture is poured into a modified petri dish, triggering a signal in an Arduino microcontroller which turns the bulb on. Riesco's purpose for the piece is to alter people's perceptions of the domestic electronics around them and encourage new ways of interacting with them.

NEW BARE CONDUCTIVE PRODUCTS AVAILABLE

Rapid has recently added to its Bare Conductive range with a selection of new products – including two new kits based around the Touch Board. The Starter and Pro Kits are ideal for beginners and experienced makers respectively, while a Lamp Kit contains everything you need to transform a paper template into either a touch, dimmer or proximity lamp. Plus – just the thing for those large scale projects – one litre tins of conductive paint.  

    

Visit the Rapid website to find out more.