Radiation Patterns of TV Transmitting Dipole Arrays

When designing a dipole ´panel´, a unit building block for a TV transmitting dipole array, there are several constraints which need to be met viz. beamwidth, sidelobe levels, front to back ratio and input impedance. Theories on reflector backed dipole arrays have so far dealt with idealised or thin dipoles and with infinite reflector. They are not very useful for predicting sidelobe levels and front to back ratios nor would they be of any use to calculate the input impedance of an array of relatively thick dipoles which are often used in practice. Experimental procedures are usually employed by the designer and these have proved to be very time consuming.