[TowerTalk] New antenna?

[john at kk9a.com]

I believe the definition of an OWA is: A high performance Yagi with wide
bandwidth, low SWR across the band and a direct 50 ohm feed.  It was
invented by WA3FET around 1990 and it became very popular.  All of the
homebrew monobanders that I built in the last 20 years were OWA fed directly
with no hairpins to adjust. I am sure that K3LR has been using them even
longer. Force12, OptiBeam, JK Antennas, Innovantennas, etc use(d) true OWA
designs. 

All of the Hy-Gain and M2 monobanders that I have seen the manuals for are
not directly fed Yagis.  

John KK9A   



Brian Beezley k6sti wrote: 

I licensed Yagi optimization software to both Hy-Gain and M-Squared 
Antennas in the 1990s. I believe Mike Staal at M2 got it before Roger 
Cox at Hy-Gain. But before that, Dr. James Lawson, W2PV, a physicist, 
wrote "Yagi Antenna Design," a book published by the ARRL in 1986. His 
FORTRAN program did not employ automatic optimization. I'm sure hams 
home-brewed some of the designs, but I don't know if any were offered 
commercially.

As long as we're on Yagi history, Mike Staal seems to be the first to 
introduce the close-spaced director characteristic of what are now 
called OWA designs. Mike regarded the technique as proprietary and kept 
quiet about it.

Here is a link to "A Secret Story About the Yagi Antenna," published by 
the IEEE. I loved the part about Uda arriving in San Francisco after the 
WW II. His reaction at seeing all the TV Yagis on homes is delightful.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=88216

Brian