Laboratory Exercise #6:

Antenna Foxhunt



By:
Matt Alberda
And
Sean Sarniak








EGR 480: Wireless Communication Systems
Section 10/901
26 October 2010
Dr. Bruce Dunne
Alberda and Sarnlak 2

!rocedure
or this laboratory exercise, a halI-wave (center Ied) dipole antenna was designed and constructed to
operate best at a center Irequency oI 440 MHz. In reIerence to Codie Wilson`s 'Antenna Design
Primer article, the antenna element lengths were determined using the Iollowing equation:

|mctcs]
=
.

MHz
=
.

= . rs oo
.

= . rs pr
Two lengths oI solid core wire were cut to be approximately 16 cm in length. Between the two
Ieedpoints, a 1:1 balun was installed. The VSWR meter was connected to the balun and a reading oI
'~5 was recorded. Since this reading was so Iar oII Irom the target oI less than 2 VSWR, the balun
was removed and the VSWR was re-measured and Iound to be approximately 3 VSWR.

Each antenna leg was then modiIied until the optimal VSWR was measured (approximately 1.5 on the
analog meter) at a length oI 13.5 cm (27 cm total antenna length). Those two lengths oI wire were
arranged to Iorm the Iinal antenna as shown in lgure 1.

I|gure 1 na|fWave CenterIed D|po|e Antenna
Conclusion
&nIortunately, we did not win any oI the oxhunt rounds and were rarely able to measure any signal
Irom the transmitter. We surmised that, although center-Ied dipole antennas are easy to build, they do
not have precise enough directionality to isolate the transmitted signal. In Iact, the antenna had to be
very close and parallel to the transmitter antenna to see any measurable signal gain.