ESP8266 range deterioration when external antenna is connected.

I have an ESP8266 module installed in my garage but due to poor range I bought a version with a connector for an external antenna - ESP8266-07 + 3dBi antenna.
Unfortunately, after the change, the range has deteriorated instead of improving. Is such an external antenna a pic or should it improve the range?

3dBi is basically an omni-directional antenna. "Inverted F" on the PCB is sometimes even a bit more directional, and there will always be some connector and cable losses. An antenna with higher gain is not necessarily better either, generally the higher the gain the more you have to "aim".
For this, it is worth trying to take the antenna outside the garage.

sliver1 wrote:

I have an ESP8266 module installed in my garage but due to poor range I bought a version with a connector for an external antenna - ESP8266-07 + 3dBi antenna.
Unfortunately, after the change, the range has deteriorated instead of improving. Is such an external antenna a pic or should it improve the range?

Hello!
I myself am trying to buy such a set with an antenna, and I am curious how it looks like for you?
Greetings.

Hi. I may be digging a bit but some people may find this information useful. On the esp-07 the external antenna works best if you unsolder the capacitor on the right side of the ufl connector. Desoldering disables the smd antenna which interferes with the external antenna.

It takes a little more than removing the C, you need to change two parameters. The factory power setting is about half and the value is in Power TX=50, it should be 82. Depending on the company it has a different composition. With the original Espressif Systems you can use AT+RFPOWER=82 and the second AT+RFVDD=3300. Everything is described in the PDF pages 14 and 15. We also have power control in LUA and ESP BASIC, Arduino.

I recommend installing the Arduino IDE. Everything can be set up, including transmitter power and mode conveniently. The highest power can be set in 802.11B mode.

w1941s how much range do you think you can get with the esp 07 turned up? needs so about 100m stable connection transmitter at home by window, receiver outside.

You will get it without a problem, just follow two steps, remove the capacitor, change the register values. Which category you use does not matter, the difference appears in the transfer. In between, a signal level of 3dB doesn't matter, so you can skip the class selection. The 07, by the way, is kind of failing on its own, as there are sometimes problems not only with range but also with memory. Going back to the range check that pins 3,4,29,30 are connected together, there are versions of the ESP8266 07 where the 0R resistor to pins 3,4 from the power supply is missing. There should be an equal voltage of 3.3V on all pins. To check this, desolder the metal case. Write more about how you program the ESP8266, you can check certain parameters programmatically. Either by AT or LUA, in Arduino it is also possible, but even in the latest version 2.1 there are problems. Think also about ESP BASIC, it is interesting, because both firmware and written programs are loaded via WiFi, so in the case of changes, you do not need to disassemble the EPS and connect to cables and the programmer. In addition, you can program with a smartphone, tablet or notebook running any Android, Windows, iOS, Linux, etc..........

w1941s wrote:

I recommend installing the Arduino IDE. Everything can be set up, including transmitter power and mode conveniently. The highest power can be set in 802.11B mode.

What command increases the transmitter power?

In the arduino IDE:



You need to remember to have these two commands at the very beginning of the ESP configuration.

My observations confirm this. Much better range and sensitivity has the bare ESP -01 or Nodemcu 0.9. To my ESP-07 I connected a directional antenna with a gain (according to the manufacturer) of 14 dbi on a short 0.5 m low-loss cable, an external omnidirectional antenna as well as antennas from wifi routers. It performs very poorly, reception much weaker than the small ESP-01. I don't know what this is due to. I have desoldered the capacitor.

Quote:

miost

I haven't checked because my eps antenna is somewhere in China on the way but there a resistor was soldered off and not a capacitor.

https://rays-blog.de/2016/10/21/224/adding-wi...ixhawk-flight-controller-with-esp8266-module/

Quote:

For better Wi-Fi performance when using the ESP telemetry module during flight it can be beneficial to connect an external antenna. The ESP-07 module has both, an on-board antenna and an U.FL connector for an external antenna. To use an external antenna, the on-board antenna needs to be disconnected by removing the 0 Ω bridging resistor:

That's right a resistor (I spelled it wrong but it doesn't matter in this case), you have to desolder this element but it doesn't generally improve much. I have ordered an ESP 07S and an ESP-201 and will test on the same antennas I will let you know.

Maybe there is something wrong with the antenna, buy some Chinese 3-5dbi models I have a feeling you will get better results on them.
See here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYdZ_24yg0, not a very fancy antenna and a range of 4km unless they are pushing fairy tales.

I think it's a matter of poor radio on the ESP-07 though. The same antennas connected to a regular router or network card detect a lot more APs. I have a bit to do with antennas as a radio amateur. In the video you can see a clipped ESP-01, which confirms in part the fact that with me the ESP-01 module alone has better range and sensitivity than the ESP-07 with the removed resistor connected to the directional antenna........

The ESP-01 was an example but there are videos of the ESP-07 on an external aerial and the range is good.

miost wrote:

. I have a bit to do with antennas as a radio amateur.

So you probably know what the so-called antenna counterweight is and the importance of the geometrical dimensions of the device to which you connect the antenna in the form of a piece of wire. This test router is probably much larger than the ESP module.

This is probably indeed the case (ESP dimensions and lack of counterweight), when the weather improves I will do more experiments with external antennas. At the moment, the ESP-07S and ESP-201 behaved in the same way as the ESP07 with the resistor desoldered (after connecting the directional antenna and the Horizon dock antenna). A 1/2 wavelength wire is supplied with the ESP-201 module and this element had the most positive effect on range, although the ESP-01 still performs better.