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I have a dipole antenna designed to work on ~800MHz and 2.44GHz frequency, and a miniVNA Tiny USB device that I can use to measure return loss of the antenna. I connect the antenna directly to the DUT port of the VNA and run the measurement.

I am working from home and of course there are plenty sources of 2.44GHz emission around like WiFis, and I am wondering do the sources have a significant effect on what I see as the measured S11 return loss of the antenna? Or can I ignore their effect?

And what do you suggest for more accuracy in home working environment?

If I check two antennas at the same condition, and one gives a better (lower) s11 on desired frequency, should I say it's a better one, or worse? Since if it is better then it might also pickup the interference better!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I expect that if you put your antenna inside a microwave oven you might get erroneous readings but anticipating false readings from other users of that band is marginal at best. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2020 at 16:55

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The other sources will be uncorrelated with your miniVNA signal. They may contribute noise to the measurement, but will not offset the mean result.

Any conductors within a few wavelengths of the antenna will affect the S11 measurement, so make sure its environment is the same as it will have for the final deployment. You can check the antenna's sensitivity to the environment by moving hands or conductors around near the antenna while you make S11 measurements.

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