Structural scattering and the virtual aperture of a half-wavelength dipole antenna

Structural scattered power from large aperture antenna has been recently shown to be dependent on the aperture efficiency. For wire antennas, the notions of physical aperture, and hence the aperture efficiency are not defined. We show that a virtual aperture can be defined nonetheless, its value being determined from the structural scattering rather than the other way round. An experiment is devised that demonstrates these concepts, and results are compared with the literature.