Antennas and Propagation                                                                            Home

Antenna is THE key element of any amateur radio station.
You can use a single antenna or an array of antennas. There are many types of antennas.
An antenna is a reciprocal "device". A well chosen antenna means a plus of "gain" on the receiving chain, or, on the transmitting chain - as well.

For the HF antennas....

During th years, I've learned that the best performance/price ratio you can achieve with the wire antennas.
Wire antennas are simple, cheap and they have good efficiency (> 80...90%) when they have an appropriate length.
Except few specific cases, "longer is better" it is not always true. But, "higher is better" is always true.

WiMo GP-3 vertical three bands antenna

This is very light vertical antenna produced by WiMo in Germany starting from a cheap CB antenna made from aluminum tubes having a thin wall (~0.9 mm) and diameters chosen to form a telescopic structure. The total height of the antenna is around 5.4 m and the weight including the radials is around 1.8 Kg.
It might be not the best antenna for a permanent usage on the roof, but could be a good solution for portable/mobile use.

GP-3 vertical   

 

Mosley MP-33 three elements - tribander

Mosley MP-33 schematics

 


 - Antennas simulation TOOLS....

FREE! The 4NEC2 antenna software, using NEC2 and NEC4 engine, is downloadable from here.

FREE! The MMANA tool using a MININEC engine, last english version, is downloadable from here .

Also, there are many available commercial suites for antennas design/modeling and electromagnetical simulation.

Propagation

If you want to get the information about propagation, click here!

 


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