Practical Antenna Handbook

625 Pages·2001·9.95 MB·English

by  Joseph Carr

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Practical
Antenna
Handbook
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Other Books by Joseph J. Carr
DC Power Supplies
Old Time Radios! Restoration and Repair
Secrets of RF Circuit Design
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Practical
Antenna
Handbook
Fourth Edition
Joseph J. Carr
McGraw-Hill
New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London
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Copyright 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United
States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-137435-3.

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TERMS OF USE

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DOI: 10.1036/0071389318
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Dedication
Dedicated in memoriam to Johnnie Harper Thorne, K4NFU:
a friend and colleague for nearly 30 years who is sorely missed.
Johnnie was a genius who knew some real smoke about antennas.
Killed by a drunk driver. . .
From the Publisher
The fourth edition of this book is published in memory of Joe Carr who
passed away shortly after completing his manuscript. Joe was a valuable
member of the McGraw-Hill family of authors and the electronics
community as a whole. He will be missed by us all.
Scott L. Grillo
Editor-in-Chief
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Contents
Introduction to the Fourth Edition ix
1 Introduction to Radio Broadcasting and
Communications 1
2 Radio-wave Propagation 5
3 Transmission Lines 59
4 The Smith Chart 95
5 Fundamentals of Radio Antennas 123
6 High-Frequency Dipole and Other Doublet Antennas 141
7 Vertically Polarized HF Antennas 173
8 Multiband and Tunable-Wire Antennas 203
9 Longwire Directional Antennas 213
10 Hidden and Limited-Space Antennas 231
11 Directional Phased Vertical Antennas 245
12 Directional Beam Antennas 255
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viii Contents
13 Antennas for Shortwave Reception 271
14 Large Wire Loop Antennas 287
15 Small Loop Receiving Antennas 299
16 Small Transmitting Loop Antennas 319
17 Antenna Modeling Software 327
18 VHF/UHF Transmitting and Receiving Antennas 339
19 Microwave Waveguides and Antennas 369
20 Antenna Noise Temperature 417
21 Antennas for Radio Astronomy 421
22 Adjusting, Installing, and Troubleshooting Antennas and
Transmission Lines 433
23 Antennas for Radio Direction Finding (RDF) 439
24 Impedence Matching in Antenna Systems 457
25 Mobile, Emergency, Portable, and Marine Antennas 479
26 Antennas for Low-Frequency Operation 501
27 Measurement and Adjustment Techniques 515
28 General Antenna Mechanical Construction Techniques 543
29 Grounding the Antenna: What Is a Good Ground? 573
Index 583
McGraw-Hill Terms of Use
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Introduction to
the fourth edition
IT WAS WITH GREAT PLEASURE THAT I WROTE THIS FOURTH EDITION OF PRACTICAL
Antenna Handbook. The original intent when the first edition was planned was to
provide the reader with a practical, yet theoretical, book that could be used with
only a minimal effort to actually design and install radio antennas. It was assumed
that the readership would possess a wide range of levels of antenna sophistication,
from the novice “newbie” to the professional engineer. That assumption proved to be
correct as I have received letters from a wide variety of people.
The success of the three previous editions of Practical Antenna Handbookhas
been most gratifying. Clerks in radio stores told me that this book was outselling
other titles 2:1. They confirmed that the types of people who buy the book meet the
profile above. It was with surprise and delight that I noted that clerks in one radio
store could cite the McGraw-Hill catalog number from memory, when they could not
do that for other antenna books.
While the sales are deeply appreciated (they are an honor), there was one com-
ment that stood out. The salesman at one radio store introduced me to an instructor
from a U.S. Government communications school. He typically bought twenty copies
of Practical Antenna Handbookat a time for use by his students in a training class.
He told me that the reason why he selected my book over others was “...it’s the only
book on the marketthat people can give to a secretary, or clerk-typist, and expect
them to be able to put up a working half-wavelength dipole two hours later.” And, he
stated, in his business that could literally happen any time.
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