Art,

OK, here is my contribution.

Short antennas are quite thoroughly understood. Most of the analytical
treatments of antenna theory I have seen start with short dipoles and then
expand to longer dipoles and other types of antennas.

There have been any number of segmented antennas proposed and built, including
multiple trap antennas, multiple capacitor antennas, curtain antennas, fractal
antennas, and so on. Do you have some new idea that has not already been tried?

Short antennas radiate just fine, IF one can feed the power into the antenna and
avoid losing too much to non-radiative losses.

It has already been pointed out that all parts of a dipole antenna contribute to
the radiation. Sure, it is possible to shorten the antenna and even maintain the
same total radiated power. However, the pattern will change and the antenna may
become more difficult to feed.

It is not clear what issue you find with Yagi antennas. Keep in mind that it is
unlikely that one can achieve high directionality and gain from an antenna with
a size that is a tiny fraction of the wavelength. This is the case for radio
waves, optics, or any other wave phenomena. The reason people choose to use
large Yagi antennas is gain, not efficiency or cost.

Soooo, the bottom line is that there are large antennas, and there are small
antennas. Different applications favor one type over others.

Do you expect to develop some new antenna design concepts or even some new
science? If the former, then the field is well-plowed, even if it is
theoretically still infinite. If the latter, well, good luck.

73,
Gene
W4SZ


Art Unwin KB9MZ wrote:

Gene,
Brian is a fellow Brit why would I trash a fellow 'G'
Come to think of it why are you trashing me when you contributed nothing ?
Just try to get along and you are home free
Art