MultiNav Pro+ BLE 50km range - what antenna setup are you guys actually using?

Rajesh Malik•June 12, 2026

Been messing around with the MultiNav Pro+ BLE module for a long-range telemetry project - basically trying to get sensor readings back from a fixed remote node about 8-10km out in a semi-rural area with some tree cover. The module itself seems solid and I got it talking to my MCU without too much pain, but I'm hitting a wall trying to figure out what the right antenna setup looks like to actually get usable range out of it. The 50km spec is obviously a best-case thing (line of sight, ideal conditions, etc.) but I'm not even sure what antenna gain they're assuming when they quote that number.

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Joseph Hawkins•June 12, 2026

For 8-10km with some tree cover you're probably going to want a high-gain directional yagi or patch antenna on the base station side pointed at the remote node, and honestly even a simple dipole upgrade over the stock antenna on the remote end makes a bigger difference than people expect. The tree cover is gonna hurt you more than distance at that range so getting your base antenna up high matters a lot - even a few extra meters of elevation can be the difference between solid link and constant dropouts.

Curtis Elliott•June 12, 2026

Good advice from Joseph - I'll add that on the remote node side, if you can swing it, mounting the antenna as high as possible and using a short, low-loss coax run (LMR-400 or similar) makes a noticeable diff at those distances. I was running a similar setup out to about 6km and the coax quality honestly surprised me how much it mattered once I swapped out the cheap stuff.