I have just downloaded the latest versions of these two programs, and am
very impressed.
MultiNEC 2 does all the good things that the earlier versions did, plus an
absolutely spectacular interface with VOACAP and VOAAREA. Now you can go
directly from modeling the latest and greatest antenna system to seeing how
it will work in your target area, today, last November, or next November
(though you may not want to look at the sunspot number being predicted for
next November!) It actually makes VOACAP easy to use!
It's available at http://www.qsl.net/ac6la/multinec.html. The demo is
full-featured and its only limitation is a nag screen. Registration costs
$39 -- I'm just as cheap as the average ham, but within two hours of
downloading the demo, I concluded this one is in my toolkit to stay, and
sent in my registration fee via PayPal.
4NEC2 has long provided a relatively friendly user interface for NEC-2, but
in recent months Arie has rapidly improved its built-in optimizer and other
cutting-edge features (to my knowledge, the other optimizers out there use
MININEC computing engines). In the most recent release, however, he's
incorporated an absolutely stunning DirectX viewer for looking at antenna
structures and patterns.
4NEC2 is freeware, downloadable from http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/swindex.html.
73, Pete N4ZR
Are you up to date in the World HF Contest Station Database? Go to
www.pvrc.org/wcsd/wcsdsearch.htm and see for yourself
|