Hi All,
Recently purchased the M6E-Nano board, along with the UHF RFID stickers.
Currently I’m powering it with an external power supply, but I’ve also tried with USB (at lower TX powers).
My problem is: range seems to be pretty terrible using the PCB antenna. Sticking the RFID tag to a piece of thin card stock, and making sure the PCB antenna is in free space, the best range I’ve got has been ~5 inches or so, and realistically this is more like 2-3 inches.
RSSI readings are always around -55dbm when it manages to read a card.
Any ideas?
Is the 5" at max TX power (external supply)?
Also try testing with a different tag source like a phone and see if it behaves similarly
I have a RF power meter, and I can see that I’m getting like -20dBm at the equivalent distance to the tag.
A bit more messing around, and it looks like dropping the read power from 27dBm to 20dBm actually improves the range. My record at the moment (with the transmitter and NFC tag in a very particular spot) is about 12 inches. I’m assuming TX is causing the RX front end to be blown out at higher powers perhaps?
This is better, I guess, and gets me into the “1 to 2 feet with the onboard antenna.”, although it’s very finnicky / small sweet spot.
I’m going to look into getting some external antennas, see if I can do better.
Gotcha. This one increases the max to around 16 feet 