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Antennas · Deep Dive · 33 volumes

Antennas

33 volumes on the half of RF nobody teaches you on YouTube.

RF fundamentals from first principles — propagation, design, measurement, fabrication.

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Volumes

  1. Vol 1 Overview, the Decision Graph, and How to Read This Series What this deep dive is, what it isn't, the antenna decision tree, the DIY-vs-Buy duality, and how the 32 volumes thread back into the rest of the Hack Tools hub
  2. Vol 2 RF Fundamentals Wavelength and frequency, propagation modes, polarization, near vs far field, the Friis equation, and the working subset of electromagnetics every later volume relies on
  3. Vol 3 dB and dBm The decibel as a unit, dBm vs dBW vs dBμV, dBi vs dBd vs dBic, return loss vs SWR, link budgets, the +3/+10/-3/-10 shortcuts, and the traps that bite every RF engineer eventually
  4. Vol 4 Antenna Theory Impedance, resonance, SWR, gain, directivity, radiation patterns, beamwidth, front-to-back, efficiency, Q, bandwidth — the working theory every per-antenna chapter assumes
  5. Vol 5 Transmission Lines & Feedlines Coax types (RG-58 / RG-8X / LMR-240/400/600 / RG-213), ladder line and open-wire, loss per 100 ft per band, velocity factor, connectors (SMA / N / BNC / TNC / UHF / F / RP-SMA), adapters, the cost of bad coax
  6. Vol 6 Single-band Dipoles Half-wave, folded, inverted-V, sloper, vertical dipole — the canonical resonant antenna; DIY build and commercial-buy options for a clean single-band performer
  7. Vol 7 Multi-band & Specialty Dipoles Off-center-fed (OCFD/Carolina Windom), fan dipole, trap dipole, doublet, G5RV, ZS6BKW, linked dipole, cage dipole — the multi-band wire-antenna problem and the dozen ways the ham community has solved it
  8. Vol 8 Vertical Monopoles (Fixed) Quarter-wave verticals, ground planes, full-size HF verticals (Hustler 4/5/6-BTV, R-7000, GAP), shortened loaded verticals, the half-square, the radial field as a load-bearing element
  9. Vol 9 Portable & Mobile Monopoles Mag-mount whips, ham-sticks, MP-1 / AX-1 / Buddistick, J-pole and Slim Jim, rubber ducks, telescoping whips, the practical portable HF/VHF/UHF antenna catalogue
  10. Vol 10 Random Wire & End-Fed Antennas Random wire, end-fed half-wave (EFHW), long wire, sloper, inverted-L — the no-radial multi-band wire antenna and the 9:1 / 49:1 UNUNs that make it work
  11. Vol 11 Yagi-Uda Antennas Director/reflector/driven-element design, boom length vs gain, F/B optimization, single-band vs LFA/OWA, hairpin and gamma matches; the canonical gain antenna for VHF/UHF and the secret weapon at 2.4 / 5 GHz
  12. Vol 12 Discone & Wideband (Discone-Family) Antennas Discone geometry, sleeve, conical monopole, biconical — the impedance-derived wideband family for scanners and wideband SDR receive (and the surprising fact that they transmit reasonably well too)
  13. Vol 13 Log-periodic & Structured Wideband Antennas LPDA (log-periodic dipole array), horn, spiral, Vivaldi, equiangular spiral — the geometric-series-based wideband family for microwave receive, EMC test ranges, and 2.4 / 5 GHz Wi-Fi auditing
  14. Vol 14 Transmitting Loops Small magnetic transmitting loops (Alexloop, Chameleon F-Loop, Ciro Mazzoni), full-wave loops (delta, quad, hex beam), the high-Q narrow-bandwidth tradeoff and why magloops are the right answer for stealth HF
  15. Vol 15 Receive-only Loops & Specialty Receive Antennas K9AY, beverage, terminated flag / pennant / EWE, ferrite-rod, active receive loops (Wellbrook ALA1530, LZ1AQ, Bonito MegaLoop) — antennas built for SNR, not radiated power
  16. Vol 16 BALUNs and UNUNs Current vs voltage, 1:1 / 4:1 / 9:1 / 49:1 / 64:1, ferrite mix selection (43 / 31 / 61 / 52), bifilar / trifilar winding, power handling, common-mode chokes — DIY winding recipes and commercial-buy options across the impedance-matching catalogue
  17. Vol 17 Antenna Tuners & Matching Networks L / T / pi networks, autotuners (LDG, MFJ, mAT, Icom AT-180), step-up / step-down transformers, Smith-chart matching by hand, transmatch topologies — when to tune at the rig and when to tune at the antenna
  18. Vol 18 Passive Splitters, Combiners & Couplers Wilkinson, hybrid (quadrature, rat-race, 180°), resistive, ferrite-core, directional couplers — the passive RF distribution catalogue with isolation, insertion loss, and bandwidth tradeoffs
  19. Vol 19 Active Splitters, Distribution Amplifiers & Preamps RF-over-coax distribution amps, MMIC LNAs, masthead preamps, bias-T arrangements, the noise-figure / gain budget across an active distribution network
  20. Vol 20 Grounding, Counterpoise, Radials, Lightning Protection RF ground vs DC ground vs safety ground, radial field design, single-point ground, polyphaser arrestors, the building ground bond, ground loops, and the cost of getting it wrong
  21. Vol 21 Mounting, Masts, Ropes & Physical Installation Push-up fiberglass masts, Spiderbeam poles, ham towers (Rohn 25/45/55/65, US Towers), guy-wire geometry, fiberglass poles, halyards and line-throwing, climbing safety, the antenna installer's tool kit
  22. Vol 22 Weatherproofing, Sealing, Corrosion Coax-Seal, self-amalgamating tape, 3M Scotchkote, UV-rated insulators, stainless hardware, ice loading, salt spray — the environmental defense of an outdoor antenna install
  23. Vol 23 Stealth & Restricted-Space Antennas HOA, apartment, balcony, attic deployments; mag-loop in a closet, flagpole-disguise antennas, gutter feeds, attic dipoles, indoor verticals — the constrained-posture playbook
  24. Vol 24 NanoVNA Deep Dive Hardware revisions (V2, SAA-2N, Hugen V3, LiteVNA, NanoVNA-F), calibration (open / short / load / through), S11 / S21 measurement, Smith-chart workflow, time-domain reflectometry, NanoVNA-Saver host software
  25. Vol 25 Other Antenna Analyzers & VNAs RigExpert (Stick / AA-600 / AA-2000), MFJ-259/269, Sark-110, Comet CAA-500, the full-instrument VNAs (Keysight / R&S / Copper Mountain), and where each sits relative to the NanoVNA
  26. Vol 26 RF Power, SWR & Field-Strength Measurement Through-line wattmeters (Bird 43, MFJ-849, Daiwa CN-801), SWR meters, dummy loads (50 Ω 5 W → 1.5 kW), RF probes, signal generators (HP/Agilent, SDR-as-source, NanoVNA port-1, ADF4351 cheap synth boards) — the test bench that complements the VNA
  27. Vol 27 Spectrum Analyzers with Antennas TinySA / TinySA Ultra, RSA306, R&S handhelds, Signal Hound USB — using a spectrum analyzer for antenna work (SWR sweep via tracking gen, harmonic measurement, EIRP estimation, near-field probing)
  28. Vol 28 Antenna Modeling Software NEC-2 / NEC-4 / NEC-5 history, 4nec2 (Windows, free), EZNEC Pro, MMANA-GAL, openEMS (FDTD), CST / HFSS (commercial) — the predict-before-build workflow
  29. Vol 29 Use-case Matrix: Radios in the Hub Per-radio antenna recommendations for every device in the Hack Tools hub — HackRF, RTL-SDR, Flipper, Marauder, Pineapple, PortaRF, UV-K5, Rayhunter, Banshee, PWNagotchi, Nyan Box, DSTIKE Hackheld — with BALUN/feedline notes and posture mapping
  30. Vol 30 Multi-Radio Shared Antennas — Diplexers, Multiplexers & Band-Switching One antenna for many radios — the three sharing strategies, the GPS exception, the TX-RX problem, and the uConsole 7-antenna case walked through end-to-end
  31. Vol 31 Regulatory & RF Safety FCC Part 15 / Part 97 / Part 22, ERP / EIRP limits, ITU regions, MPE exposure tables, OET-65 workflow, lightning, common-mode currents, the legal envelope of every transmit antenna
  32. Vol 32 Antenna Farms & Multi-Antenna Systems Stacking, vertical / horizontal arrays, switching matrices, automatic antenna selectors, phased verticals, beverage arrays, contest-grade installations — the multi-antenna posture
  33. Vol 33 Cheatsheet, Glossary & Canonical Anchor Index Laminate-ready field cards (band tables, wavelength quick refs, SWR/return-loss conversion, ferrite-mix selection, BALUN topology cheats, NanoVNA cal sequence) + A-Z glossary + the canonical anchor index for inbound cross-deep-dive links