title: Practical Wire Antennas: Effective High Frequency Designs for the Radio Amateur
author: John D. Heys
description: Wire antennas offer one of the most cost-effective ways to put out a good signal on the HF bands, and this practical guide to their construction has something to interest every amateur on a budget. Many different types are covered, ranging from simple dipoles to ingenious multi-wire systems, even underground.
zlib_text: Chapter 1
  ANTENNA FUNDAMENTALS
  Paul Wade W1GHZ (ex-N1BWT)
  ©1994,1997,1998
  Introduction
  Antenna gain is essential for microwave communication — since it helps both transmitting
  and receiving, it is doubly valuable.  Practical microwave antennas provide high gain
  within the range of amateur fabrication skills and budgets.
  Three types of microwave antennas meet these criteria: horns, lenses, and dishes.  Horns
  are simple, foolproof, and easy to build; a 10 GHz horn with 17 dB of gain fits in the palm
  of a hand.  Metal-plate lenses1 are easy to build, light in weight, and non-critical to adjust.
  Finally, dishes can provide extremely high gain; a 2-foot dish at 10 GHz has more than 30
  dB of gain, and much larger dishes are available.
  These high gains are only achievable if the antennas are properly implemented.  I will try
  to explain the fundamentals using pictures and graphics as an aid to understanding.  In
  addition, a computer program, HDL_ANT, is available for the difficult calculations