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Antenna modeling used to be the domain of scientists and engineers with very expensive antenna ranges covering acres and acres of land strewn with expensive equipment. With the proliferation of personal computers and affordable (even free) software, antenna modeling has become a popular amateur activity. With modeling you can determine the pattern, feed point impedance and even the SWR of your antenna system before cutting one piece of wire or one tube of aluminum. This can save an awful lot of tree and tower climbing.
Here we present a series by L. B. Cebick, W4RNL entitled A Beginner's Guide to Modeling with NEC that will get you started and even tell you where to get software. See also the list of other articles on modeling.
Additional resources
The ARRL Antenna Book
QST Magazine
ARRL Certification and Continuing Education Course – EC-004 Antenna Modeling
The ARRL has an extensive catalog of books and materials related to Amateur Radio.
Note: Some of the following articles are in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. To view and print these files, you'll need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader program. (Version 3.0 or later required). More information here.
 QST November 2000, pp. 34-38 Feedback: Notes 1. NEC4WIN from Orion URL should be http://www.orionmicro.com QST December 2000, pp. 40-44 QST January 2001, pp. 44-48 QST February 2001, pp. 31-35 |
Contact information for suppliers mentioned in the above articles should first be confirmed using TIS Address Database Search.
ARRL Periodicals Index Search - This database contains the QST index from 1915 to the present and the QEX index from 1981 to the present. For QST issues from 1970 to the present, and some selected articles back to 1922 (when construction articles featuring tubes began in earnest), identifying keywords have been added to the technical articles. By entering keywords (ANTENNA) or combinations of keywords (CONSTRUCTION ANTENNA VERTICAL HF) into the Title words: field, you may create dynamic bibliographies.
Technical article KEYWORD list. Hints for more successful searching
Suggested keywords for more articles like the ones on this page are: ANTENNA MODELING
Nec2go
Simplified Nec2 modeling for amateurs and professionals.
MM Hamsoft
Includes free MM Antenna Analyzer
EZNEC Antenna Software by W7EL
EZNEC 3.0 and EZNEC pro 3.0 are full-featured 32-bit Windows applications
Sample EZNEC Files
AntenneX
A disk holding all of the exercise files in .EZ format for use with EZNEC is available.
Orion Microsystems--Antenna Simulation for Windows
NEC4WIN95 is known for its user friendliness. Most commands are accessible in one click from a toolbar.
EM Scientific, Inc.
Expert MININEC for Windows: ideal for the novice, student, and hobbyist.
Nittany Scientific, Inc.
NEC-Win Plus. This site also contains an extensive tutorial.
Grating Solver Development Company
Antenna Solver V1.1
The unofficial Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC) Archives
Additional information not found in the NEC-2 manuals.
Antennas, Service and Education
by L. B. Cebik, W4RNL
A wealth of information and tutorials on antennas by the author of the QST series "A Beginner's Guide to Modeling with NEC"
NEC-Win Synth
Wire Grid Model Generating Software
Antenna Modeling Software &Other Utility Programs
by Dan Maguire, AC6LA
Antenna Modeling Files
To be used with either NEC-4 or Yagi Optimizer modeling programs. While YO is no longer available, .YAG files can be converted using the SCALE.exe program that appears in the YAGIS subdirectory when YW is installed. YW comes with the ARRL Antenna Book.
G4FGQ's Software
G4FGQ's Software -- A collection of free engineering/modeling programs written by Reg G4FGQ.
You can get a photocopy of any ARRL published article for $3 ($5 for nonmembers) for each article requested. Contact the ARRL Technical Department (reprints@arrl.org ), 1-860-594-0390) if you wish to get photocopies.
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