Antenna Options

When asked to become a contributing editor for QEX, ARRL's technical experimenter's journal, I developed the "antenna options" theme as a foundation for my irregular contributions. Each episode in the series tries to lay out the options that an antenna builder, designer, or user has over some defined territory. Sometimes the options are purely practical--as practical as selecting element or boom materials. Sometimes the options match antenna designs to operating goals. Sometimes the options involve modeling software and its use. Occasionally, a topic requires more than one episode to finish (although we never really exhaust our options). However, the irregular publication schedule limits the number of columns devoted to a single topic. All items on the list below appear with permission, although they are copyrighted by ARRL. The material originally appeared in QEX: Forum for Communications Experimenters (www.arrl.org/qex). The episodes will appear at this site only after they have appeared in QEX.

• No. 1: A Yagi Case Study: Part 1, Design Options
• No. 2: A Yagi Case Study: Part 2, Element Material Options
• No. 3: A Yagi Case Study: Part 3, Construction Options
• No. 4: Antenna Modeling Software: Part 1
• No. 5: Antenna Modeling Software: Part 2
• No. 6: Do I Need More Gain?
• No. 7: Wire and the HF Horizon: the Ys and Wherefores
• No. 8: How Wide is Wide?
• No. 9: A Broadside of Vertical Wires
• No. 10: Horizontal Bi-Directional Wires
• No. 11: From Two to One
• No. 12: Narrowband NVIS Antennas
• No. 13: NVIS Antennas for Special Needs
• No. 14: Reversible Wire Beams for Lower HF Use
• No. 15: Circularly Polarized Aimed Satellite Antennas
• No. 16: Horizontally Polarized Omni-Directional Antennas: Some Compact Choices
• No. 16a: Horizontally Polarized Omni-Directional Antennas: Some Larger Choices
• No. 17: Beam-Matching
• No. 18: Reflections on Reflectors

The versions of the episodes that appear here are in HTML format. Hence, they will diverge in appearance from the versions appearing in QEX. Occasionally, I shall have to change some wording to suit the arrangement and progression of graphics and tables.

Updated 03-05-2008. © L. B. Cebik, W4RNL. Data may be used for personal purposes, but may not be reproduced for publication in print or any other medium without permission of the author and ARRL.

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