900mhz Horizontal Antenna Design

[KC9OKN]

I am fairly new to antenna design and am learning. I just built my first 2 Meter J Pole and I got the bug to build more antennas.

Now I am trying to find a solution to a problem I have for something outside of the Ham realm, but following the same principles.

I run a few wireless internet access points. Majority of my radios are 900mhz. I typically use PacWireless 900mhz Horizontal Omni's. The downside of these antennas, are they are quite large, heavy, and carry quite a bit of wind load. Majority of my towers I have equipment on, this is not a problem. However I have two towers both Trylon T200 series towers that with the microwave link dishes on them, I am scared to put these heavy antennas up there. So I have resorted to using Vertical polarity fiberglass whips. Well vertical polarity in 900mhz is horrible at best for our application. I have found this one antenna http://kc9okn.com/900omni.jpg, which is a Horizontal 900mhz. However this antenna is quite salty in price as well. With what I have been learning, I do not see why I could not build something that would do the trick. However, I am just not at the level to design it 100%.

I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions, and can possibly steer me in the right direction for some software to aid in antenna design etc..

I know this is not technically ham related, but still home brewing and is Antenna design.

Thank you for your time.
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Clint
KC9OKN

[K9STH]

Do you need omni directional antennas or directional?

If omni directional you could easily build a halo or squalo antenna and then stack them for additional gain.

If directional then yagi or quagi antennas will work fine.

Glen, K9STH

[KC9OKN]

Glen,

Thank you for your suggestion. I was not familiar with either antenna type (halo or squalo) but a quick google search took care of that for me.

I found this great site dealing with squalos. It seems very practical to what I want to do.

http://www.neasmn.org/squalo/squalo.htm

Now to pull out the calculator and do some math.

Thanks for putting me in the right direction.

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Clint
KC9OKN

[KC9OKN]

Either I am not thinking straight or something (not thinking straight probably most logical sense I have been up nearly 32hrs straight so far.)

Correct me if I am wrong, but a full wave antenna in the 33 centimeter band would be roughly 13". These are going to be fairly small antennas based on that number.

What am I missing here?

Thanks,
Clint
KC9OKN