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Dipole Antenna FAQ's

As part of our commitment to provide you with information that adds value to your work, A.H. Systems is continuously producing articles and application notes on specific uses of our products. Our complete library of technical articles and application notes is available below for public use as an open reference for the RF engineering community. If you need information on a topic you don’t see here or you require additional technical support, we can help. Contact support to talk with one of our engineers for answers.

Common Questions

A dipole antenna is one of the most fundamental and widely used types of radio antenna. The most common and efficient type is the half-wave dipole or Hertz antenna. It is essentially an electrical conductor that has been split into two symmetrical, identical conductive elements, such as metal rods or wires.

A dipole is omnidirectional, meaning it radiates power in a 360-degree circle around the antenna. However, its radiation pattern is not perfectly uniform; it has nulls (directions of minimum signal) off the ends of the antenna and lobes of maximum radiation at the sides.

The dipole antenna exhibits a bidirectional or toroidal (doughnut-shaped) radiation pattern. Energy is radiated most strongly perpendicular to the axis of the antenna elements. Radiation is near zero (a "null") directly off the ends, along the axis of the antenna.

Its total physical length is approximately one-half of the wavelength (&lambda/2) of the radio frequency it is designed to transmit or receive.

Mount the antenna such that the elements are parallel to the ground for horizontal polarity, or perpendicular to the ground for vertical polarity.

: Antennas act differently in the near field vs. far field. Many calibration standards require different testing separation distances. Once the antenna is in the far-field, the antenna response does not change with increasing distances.

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