Antenna choices for Gamber Johnson laptop vehicle docking station with TNC-Female RF Connectors
Posted by Michael Crudele on
We had a customer come into us here at Arcadian Inc. last week looking for antenna suggestions for connecting to a Gamber Johnson laptop vehicle docking station that had integrated TNC - Female type RF connectors. You can find the entire selection of Gamber Johnson rugged vehicle mounts at. http://www.gamberjohnson.com/
This type of docking station simply uses these TNC connectors as a "pass-through" and allows the user to improve the signal quality of their Wi-FI/WLAN and/or 3G/4G-LTE connection by using external antennas.
MAG™ Dock for the Getac B300 Computer
So here is what I recommended. Since the customer could be using any one of many RF frequencies, the best choice of antenna would be a multi-band model. You could simply connect an indoor rated dipole antenna directly to the docking station, or for better performance, you could attach an RF coaxial cable kit and NMO (or magnetic) mount, then attach a low-profile transit antenna on top of the vehicle - this would provide the maximum performance and best overall connectivity.
So here are the antenna solutions that we suggest for the Gamber Johnson docking stations with TNC connectors:
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First, a simple, indoor solution would be the multi-band dipole antenna from Laird Technologies, part # DBA6927C1 |
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This antenna is manufactured by Laird Technologies. It is a vertically polarized dipole style antenna with a 90 degree "knuckle" which offers omni-directional coverage patterns and offers linear gain up 0.5 to 2.3 dBi. The frequencies covered include Wi-Fi/WLAN and 3G/4G cellular: 698-806,824-894,880-960,1710-1880,1850-1990,1920-2170,2100-2500,2500-2690 MHz. The specific part # you'd want for Gamber Johnson or equivalent applications with TNC Female connectors would be the DBA6927C1-FTNCM.
The advantage to this kind of dipole antenna is that it is easy to deploy: just screw it on and it works. The disadvantage is that it may incur significant RFinterference by being mounted inside the cabin of the vehicle. The way to remedy that is to use the 2nd antenna port to mount an external multi-band antenna. So on to my next suggestion...
My suggestion for an outdoor rated external antenna solution would be the following:
First, magnetic mounting. I'd suggest the Laird G195TI. This is a Chrome magnetic mount with 80 lb. pull strength, 3/4 inch brass NMO mount and 12 foot LMR195 cables and TNC male connector installed.
For permanent roof mounting, the best choice I can think of would be the Laird MB195 cable kit, and add a TNC male (uninstalled): this is a 3/4 inch brass NMO mount with a 17 foot LMR195 and the TNC male connector is included in the "kit" but not installed.
| For NMO roof mounting, I would suggest the Laird Technologies part # TRA6927M3 series of outdoor rated "Phantom" antennas. These cover all 3G/4G-LTE bands as well as 2.4 ghz wifi/wlan. |  |
These antennas come in both black and white, and both NMO /vehicular mount and "P" permanent mount (with integrated N-Female connector)
Models include:
TRA6927M3PB-001: permanent mount black.
TRA6927M3NB-001: NMO mount black.
TRA6927M3PW-001: permanent mount white.
TRA6927M3NW-001: NMO mount white.
One final thought on this topic. The above antennas do NOT cover the 5ghz Wi-Fi/WLAN 802.11 A channel. If you need that 5ghz frequency, then here is my suggestion... use the Pulse/Larsen "shadow - low profile antenna" part #'s
| SLPT2400/5900NMOHF: this antenna is less than 3" tall and includes both the 2.4 & 5 GHz bands. |  |
Please make note that this antenna must be used with Pulse Larsen "high frequency" NMO mounts. Here they are:
NMOKHFUDTNCI: for the NMO roof mount cable kit with 17 foot cable & TNC male
NMOMMRNOCONN: Magnetic mount with 12 foot cable and no connector.
I hope you find this helpful, and if you have any questions, just email us!
customerservice@arcadianinc.com
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