Dipole Fundamentals

I'm one these people who has to understand the minute details of a tree in order to see the forest. Sometimes that works for me, sometimes it causes me to waste a lot of time getting caught in the weeds.

In my journey to improve my understanding of simple wire antennas beyond "height is might" I ended up spending time going where many hams never go: understanding Maxwell's equations. It is well worth the effort to familiarize yourself with them even if you never touch a radio. You might never look at the world the same way again.

It blew my mind to discover that relationship between electric and magnetic field strengths is the speed of light (that's why you can light a room with a 10W lightbulb, but can barely pick up a few paperclips with a 10W electromagnet). I also don't think I'll ever look at the world around me the same knowing that the speed of light is the result of how fast electric and magnetic fields can "punch" their way through space. Crazy stuff.

Physics is fun, but how do I use that knowledge to save money on radio equipment and optimize my station? Well, I gave a presentation on that to a local club I belong to. If you'd like to take a look too, the presentation can be found here.

Let me know what you think.

73.