Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Antenna testing in the field. If you've been around amateur radio for any time at all, you'll know that we spend an awful lot of time talking about antennas. How they work, where to get them, how to build them, how strong they are, how cheap they are, how effective, how resonant, you name it, we have a discussion about it. It might not be immediately obvious why this is the case. An antenna is an antenna, right? Well ... no. Just like the infinite variety of cars on the road, the unending choice of mobile phones, ways to cook an egg and clothes to wear to avoid getting wet, antennas are designed and built for a specific purpose. I've talked at length about these variations, but in summary we can alter the dimensions to alter characteristics like frequency responsiveness, gain, weight, cost and a myriad of other parameters. If we take a step back and look at two antennas, let's say a vertical and a horizontal dipole, we immediately see that the antennas are physically differe