Gary, Most of the commerical guys do have test ranges and some very detailed and well engineered.
Most common below 1 GHz antennas were around long before computers like the PC were avialable and their technology, although sound and good, are old, go back into the 50s. Some of the broadcast guys are really getting serious. They have all kinds of ways of looking at antenna performance like just measuring the current distribution on the antenna elements to determine performance. A broadcast antenna must meet some FCC certification for performance/gain/pattern before it can be used because ERP is the standard for power. There has been lots of advancement in computer modeling and bet many not so good manufactures do use computer modeling as you said. 73, ron, n9ee/r > > It is also interesting to note that hardly any of the manufacturers of two > way antennas actually have an antenna test range or have ever tested the > antennas on a range. Most all the patterns that you see in the catalogs are > computer generated. > > 73 > Gary K4FMX >
