About us

About Prodrone

We build RF antennas in Zabrze, Poland. Every single one is tuned and measured by hand before it ships — over a thousand of them a month.

Prodrone started in 2010; the first online shop went live in 2016. In the years between, the range grew from a handful of FPV antennas to crosshair and MiCross, helicals, cloverleafs, J-poles, ground planes, biquads and sleeve dipoles, covering 433, 868 and 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz. Our antennas work with standard equipment — DJI, Walksnail, Caddx, ImmersionRC, Skyzone, Aomway, Boscam — with the connector and polarization you specify.

What has not changed is the part most manufacturers dropped as soon as volume made it inconvenient: each antenna is finished, tuned and measured individually.

Nothing sits on a shelf, and that is deliberate

An antenna is a resonant circuit. Its behaviour depends on physical dimensions down to fractions of a millimetre, which means two units built from the same drawing will not resonate identically until each one is corrected. There is no way around this at any production volume. The only question is whether the manufacturer does the correction or ships the average of the batch.

We hold antennas as semi-finished units, without a connector. Part of the reason is choice: you pick SMA or RP-SMA, straight or angled, and on circular-polarized models LHCP or RHCP. Stocking every finished combination would mean four to eight variants of every model.

The more important reason is that fitting the connector is itself the final tuning step. The match is set as the connector goes on. An antenna assembled in advance and pulled off a shelf has skipped that step, and no amount of inspection afterwards puts it back. Connector pins are soldered, not crimped — slower, and worth it.

Every unit is measured, and the numbers travel with it

Each finished antenna is swept on a vector network analyser and corrected until it sits where it belongs — inside your band, not near it.

Our guarantee is VSWR no worse than 1.3 across the antenna's range. In practice over 90% of units come out well below that, and some models have tighter internal limits: a crosshair that does not reach below 1.2 is not sold. Antennas in a set are matched to each other, unit to unit.

Every antenna carries a label with the frequency it was tuned to. On 5.8 GHz models, where the band is wide, the label also states the measured span and the VSWR ceiling inside it — for example 5696–5745 MHz, VSWR < 1.1. That figure belongs to your antenna. It is not a datasheet number for the model.

Keep the label. When you order another unit next year, send us that span and we will tune the new antenna to match the one already on your aircraft.

Materials and tooling

Cable is mainly Belden and Suhner — low attenuation, because attenuation in the feedline is range you paid for and never received. Machined parts are cut in-house on our own CNC equipment. Over the years we have built most of our own jigs and fixtures, which is the unglamorous reason the repeatability is what it is: consistent geometry going in means less correction needed coming out.

Outside the catalogue

The shop shows what we keep as standard, mostly around 5.8 GHz. A significant part of our work sits outside it. We have designed and delivered antennas at 415 MHz, 800 MHz, 1400 MHz, 1500 MHz, 1580 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.2 GHz and 6 GHz, among others — built to a specified frequency, polarization, connector and mechanical envelope rather than picked from a range.

If the band you need is not in the catalogue, that is not an obstacle. Send us the frequency, the required polarization, the mounting constraints and the quantity. We will tell you what is feasible, what needs a new design, and what it costs. A single prototype first is normal; once it measures where you need it, the design is repeatable in series with the same figures on every unit.

Frequency coverage in current production spans roughly 400 MHz to 6 GHz. Custom work is quoted individually.

Tuned to your frequency

Standard 5.8 GHz tuning centres on 5800 MHz. If you need something else, our tuning service covers 5640–5940 MHz to within ±20 MHz of your requested frequency, and tighter on request. We can also measure antennas bought elsewhere if you send them in, and issue a measurement certificate when you need one on file.

Manufacturing and supply chain

Design, machining, assembly, tuning, measurement and quality control all take place at our facility in Zabrze, Poland. The production process is entirely ours — we do not rebrand finished antennas. What we buy in are raw materials and sub-components: cable, connectors, machining stock and semi-finished parts, sourced on price and quality from suppliers inside and outside the EU.

Because the process belongs to us, sourcing is a variable rather than a constraint. For customers with security-of-supply or EU-content requirements we can build to an EU-only or Poland-only component specification. This affects unit cost and lead time, not feasibility. Ask us and we will quote it against your specific requirement, with documented component origin for that order.

Design and prototyping

Alongside antennas we take on CAD work in SolidWorks — models, prototypes and production parts — and run a 3D printing facility with both FDM and SLA machines. If you need a mount, an enclosure or a radome designed around an antenna rather than adapted to it, that is a single conversation instead of two suppliers.

Who we build for

Alongside FPV pilots — planes, multirotors, long range — we supply universities, UAV manufacturers and units operating in defence and public-safety roles. These are customers who specify a frequency and expect the delivered part to measure at that frequency, with a record to show it. Building to that standard is why our lead times are what they are, and why they apply to a single antenna the same as to an order of thirty.

Talk to us

Questions about a build, a frequency, or which antenna fits your aircraft: bartek@prodrone.pl, +48 725 908 725 (also WhatsApp), or the contact form. You will reach the person who made the antenna.

Made in Poland. Let's go further.