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Reviews For: Basic Antennas - Practical Antennas and Design

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Review Summary For : Basic Antennas - Practical Antennas and Design
Reviews: 4MSRP: 29.95
Description:
Introductory text on antenna theory, design, and construction.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=9994#top
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
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OZ71H Rating: 2013-08-09
Great primer Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This book is an excellent primer and should be owned by every HAM.
Be aware though that it’s not a beginners book like the book in this series about electronics are, this book is fairly advanced.
KC9IXO Rating: 2011-01-21
Best antenna book available Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had "Basic Antennas" for well over 2 years now along with ARRL's Antenna Books and Handbooks, the Compendium set, Wire Classics, QST's, etc.

This is by far the best written and most rounded work I've read to date.

This is not a collection of QST articles written by numerous authors telling you exactly how to build his antenna. This book is written by one person with the goal to teach beginners about the basic concepts of radio transmission while also challenging the experienced antenna builder.

For the ham learning antenna theory, this is the perfect book. Short chapters with review questions, pictures, diagrams, and tables on every page. And it offers a good excuse to build what you've just learned...

There are also moderately complex systems inside along with equasions such as figuring element length and spacings of a Log Periodic Dipole Array.

What separates Basic Antennas from all other books is that flows gradually chapter to chapter, from basic to complex. From Boy Scout level to Extra Class Operator.

It is a text book and a great reference book. It also spawns creativity. This is a really fun book!

We have a group called the "Antenna Builder's Guild" (antennabuilders.com) that meets once a month in Fairview Heights, Illinois. For about 8 hours on a Saturday, we design, build, test, and operate new antennas.

There has always been a copy of Basic Antennas present. When a new person attends I have them open it up and learn the concepts in chapters 1 and 2.

This includes boy scouts that have never even cut a wire before. When a young man is able to calculate length, build, and raise an antenna that works, his eyes will really light up when that first station responds to a CQ. What impresses me is that these newly fabricated antennas are good enough to do QRP work. (25 Aug 2010 14.300 RS 56 from San Diego using a 20m wire ground plane built by a 12 yr old) And when the kid sees that us "experts" are impressed, he goes home very happy and with stories to tell.

I can't say enough about how many antennas were built referencing Basic Antennas or how QSO's were made, but we sure did enjoy ourselves.

Now, if we could talk Mr. Hallas into writing simular books on Basic Transmission Lines or Basic Homemade Tuners... (hint hint)

73 Dennis KM9O (KC9IXO)
PA3BHM Rating: 2009-01-12
POOR!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Basic antennas explanes a lot only very brief
The subtitle; "includes easy to build antennas"
You have to wait until chapter 20 and then the drawings are poor too; the sizes in a. mm, b in inches and c the holes in numbers (19, 21). That in one drawing!! The sizes, most of the time in Lambda. In that case the t-match is nothing for beginners. In my oppinion; $30 is a steep price for that book. Smith Chart only mentioned on 1 page. EZNEC 6 pages - the EZNEC manual is 180 pages.
Tranmission Lines as transformers; 3 pages.
I expected a lot more, in my view; poor



K9VIC Rating: 2008-12-01
Excellent Book Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This book is a perfect for those who want an introductory book that actually explains both antenna theory and construction (and for those of us looking for a better way to explain things to the new antenna enthusiast). The use of antenna modeling software, now readily available at modest prices, makes the text even more worthwhile.

I wish I'd had such a text available when I struggled through textbook type manuals trying to understand things that seemed so difficult to grasp. Those books only provided me with verbal, technical explanations that assumed a certain level of knowledge I simply lacked. This book should spare those who read it the head scratching (and gray hair) I went through.