Plane wave antenna making

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi All,

I am going to loan my plane antenna to DC for awhile:

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyPapers/planant/waveant3.html

The most obnoxious part about making these is the etching of the grid pattern:

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyPapers/planant/Image133.jpg

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyPapers/planant/Image136.jpg

So I thought this would be a good time to try it with a solid plane 
instead.  So I whipped one up:

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/030601-01.jpg

it seems to work fine:

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/030601-02.gif

The wave form is still very true without any problems.  I was originally 
worried about eddy currents and such floating around in a solid plane, but 
it does not seem to mater.  One "could" put a few simple slits in it too I 
guess...

In this case, I am just driving a toroid with a signal generator and the 
attenuation is 5000:1 at 5 inches.  Of course, for a real operating coil 
that distance might be 15 to 20 feet so the attenuation might be more like 
100000:1.

So if one wants to make one of these and you can't etch the nice pattern 
easily, just leave it solid.

I also fine I hardly ever use the current sensing side for anything.  Just 
making the simple voltage side probably covers 99% of the uses.  It is also 
best to use very small leaded resistors and capacitors for the 
antenna.  Trying to solder those delicate surface mount components to try 
and squeeze out better performance is a real pain and probably not needed.

Cheers,

	Terry