Online Antenna Designer

Hi All,

Just a short posting from me today. (Thank God eh? )


If you like to play with antennas, constructing them or understanding them (don't we all?) then the following site might come in handy even if just for the intrigue :-

https://portable-antennas.com/index.php

I stumbled across this site quite by accident but it's proved useful to me so posted the link for those that haven't come across it.


Enjoy your radio interests and have a great weekend.  

All the best,
Victor

Anyone else had a chance to play around on this antenna site yet?

After a bit of digging (on the SOTA site) it looks like this was developed by DM1CM - Rob Banfield but strangely he doesn't have a credits mention on the site. Otherwise the site is extremely useful, full of plenty of information and a much less steep learning curve associated with it than other antenna modelling sites/software out there.

I've used it to model my 9:1 EFRW and finding exciting possibilities by playing around with antennas height, lengths and counterpoise 'virtually' before deciding on any modifications I may physically make. All of which certainly saves some time as well as a better understanding.  

A preliminary example is shown below with the data culminated into one image for a better view on my part. (Although my original is much higher resolution but kept low here to post on the forum.)




Interesting stuff. (Well, for some of us I suppose. )


All the best,
Victor

I have had a little play. It looks fairly easy to use and understand for those who want to do some modelling of a few fairly common types of antennas and who haven't used modelling software previously, or do not want to download software to do so.

Thanks for sharing.

Hi Neal,

Despite the basic antenna models available I was able to successfully plot my bit of clothes line by modeling it as an end-fed in an inverted V arrangement utilising a 9:1 Un-Un. The final view of the antenna looked pretty spot on to what I have.

The results surprised me (pleasantly) and I was able to play around with numbers until I started seeing results I was after. It turns out my antenna is none too bad and playing around with counterpoise lengths greatly effects the upper ranges (10m/6m) swinging around the field pattern. Due to that little bit of playing my next antenna experiment will be a relay operable switching of counterpoise wires and see how it fares.

I did write to Rob via the sites contact page extolling the virtues of his site and software receiving a very nice mailing back. (He mentioned my use of limited space antennas and how nice my home built ATU was. )

In his mailing he was pleased that his software was performing the job typical operators were after and especially that I'd found it so useful.

What a star.  


I shared the link just in case anyone else found it as useful as I have even if only for playing around with and understanding basic antenna systems.


All the best,
Victor