Radiation pattern - what am I looking at

[KD3Y]

Hello gentlemen,

I've seen these or awhile now but never paid much attention to them.  But now I'm curious...What exactly am I looking at?  What is this telling me?  Am I looking at the antenna from the side, as I'm standing on the ground...it's showing me the antenna is sending all the signal in a "donut shape" with little signal being sent straight up vertically?  Or am I looking at the antenna from the top as if I was in a balloon above it...it's showing me the antenna is basically "directional" and sending the signal in the direction of 270 to 90 degrees with a "dead spot" at zero degrees?  Or do I have it all wrong and it's something different altogether? 

Thanks in advance.

KD3Y

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by KD3Y
spelling

[K3MRI]

So, in this case your eyes are level with the ground and you are looking at your antenna’s pattern vertically. This means that your antenna is working best at about 20º to 50º of elevation. If you were using an NVIS antenna, most of the signal would be pointing upwards. This also shows that you have an omnidirectional antenna. If you were looking at a highly directional antenna, it would show the pattern much stronger on one side than on the other.

This diagram works best when it is paired with the overhead cut.

There used to be an amazing program. The developer has stopped working on it and no one has really replaced it, that I know. It was called EZNEC and worked on Windows only. What was great about it is that it showed you this diagram in 3D meaning you could just rotate it into any slice.

Hope this helps!!

[KD3Y]

Thanks Jim

That was the answer I was searching for.    So the "zero degrees" is straight up directly above the antenna, not on a horizontal plane like you would see if you were using a compass and it was pointing 0*.  That's what was confusing me was the degrees.  I didn't know if that was vertical or horizontal.