Impact of the Ground Structure on the Performance of a Horizontal Dipole Antenna

Among the radio frequency antennas, the dipole antenna or dipole aerial is one of the most important and commonly used types. The characteristics and the performance of these antennas are affected by many factors one of which is the ground structures. In this paper an attempt has been made using a new version of the Numerical Electromagnetic Code (4NEC2) simulation software to investigate the effect of seven different ground structures on the gain, radiation pattern, and the variation of the direction of maximum radiation of a horizontal dipole antenna operating at 300 MHz erected at different elevations. The gain varies with the elevation and directly proportional to the conductivity of the ground. The 20 m elevation was the best height for achieving a high gain above all the different ground structures. The deep of the nulls of the radiation patterns is directly proportional to the conductivity of the ground and the height of the antenna decides the direction of the maximum radiation.