[TowerTalk] More from the M2 antennas quality control file

[Jim Lux]

On 4/13/15 6:42 AM, Lizeth Norman wrote:
> Do have a question. How does one characterize an unknown antenna's
> parameters? If I understand it correctly, to characterize the "real
> world performance" (using the sun) of this type of antenna, G/T needs
> to be known.
>

Some form of antenna range.  Sun Noise works, sort of, but the problem 
is that unless your antenna has a very narrow beamwidth, the sun is 
"small".. The sun is 1/2 degree wide.  If you have a 20 degree beamwidth 
(20dBi gain), the sun occupies only 1/1600th of the field of view 
(400^2) so even though the sun is, say, 5000K, it's swamped by the mass 
of 3K cold sky around it.  Get to a 30 dBi antenna with a 1-2 degree 
beamwidth, and then sun noise starts to be a useful source.


There's a fair number of orbiting UHF sources these days, which provide 
a decent far field point source (albeit not of calibrated signal 
strength, but at least you could get good pattern cuts).